Evangelion: New Covenant
by Nagisa Akurei
Summary: In biblical terms, the New Covenant is a restored relationship between man and his God; between the Father and His children. In this tale, it is similar.
1. The Fourth Invasion

_**Like an angel that has no sense of mercy…**_

_** Rise, young man, and become legend.**_

**DISCLAIMER: **Based on the anime series and film tetralogy created by Hideaki Anno. This is a derivative work that may be removed at the discretion of _Evangelion_'s creators any time they wish.

_Neon Genesis Evangelion_, its characters, and all related trademarks, are copyright 1995, GAINAX

_Rebuild of Evangelion,_ its characters, and all related trademarks are copyright 2007, Studio Khara

**APOCRYPHA: **For the author's own purposes, the date of Second Impact has been adjusted to September 13, 2012—in this universe, the last date of the Mayan calendar. The character ages remain the same as in the core canon—their birthdates have simply been adjusted to compensate. 2012 is now the benchmark for Children capabilities.

**NEON GENESIS ****EVANGELION:**** NEW COVENANT**

Written by: Nagisa Akurei

**First Chapter: The Fourth Invasion**

"_But every one shall die for his own iniquity: every man that eateth the sour grape, his teeth shall be set on edge."_

_**-Jeremiah 31:30**_

**UN-Gehirn Primary Laboratory Complex**

**Hamburg, Federal Republic of Germany**

**Dec. 7, 2018**

He watched her die.

"Synchronization ratios are spiking above 400%! The…the core is reacting! It's trying to…my God, it's trying to change its quantum state! It's not solid anymore!"

"Neural connections are flaring all across the board—oh, my God! She can't maintain this! Get her _out_!"

"We can't! Eject systems aren't responding, Fuyutsuki-hakase!"

"Then get people out there and eject the Goddamn thing manually!"

He felt his heart drop into his stomach, and he began running for it even before Kozou's words had finished. He left the side of his confused, stricken child, ran to the umbilical bridge, his feet pounding at the same rate as his heartbeat.

The monster was howling. It opened its mouth, the flesh that should've been fused broke apart in a jagged scar, and it _howled_. Its flesh contorted, buckled, fought the crude restraints with which they'd covered it. A leering green eye as big as his own body fixed momentarily on his. The tri-lobed pupil blinked as if separate from the rest of it. At that moment, something inside him began screaming, and wouldn't stop.

He clambered onto a support, grunting with the exertion, and leapt, flailing, onto the horror he'd helped create. Somehow he ended up on its back. He gripped its flesh, digging his fingers into the vile, almost rubbery skin, and climbed till he reached the spinal convergence point, where the extruder was failing to lock onto the plug. He smashed the manual override open, grabbed the lever, hammered it down over and over again till finally it locked, nearly making him fall.

He righted himself, scrambling back towards the plug.

"Yui-chan! _YUI-CHAN_!"

Flesh burbled around him, and the plug at last was pulled out, at least halfway.. He ran to the door, looked in the tiny window, screaming for her, ignoring the beast's almost mocking noises.

"Yui-chan! Quickly! Hit the eject sequencer, you have to get out! I can help you pull the hatch—"

She smiled for him, her last smile. She was so beautiful.

"G-Gendou-kun. Shinji. You…You have…to look after Shinji…T-tell him…I'm sorry…"

The last words he ever heard from her lips.

And then she was gone, and he screamed in an agony that melded with the monster's own…

* * *

**Zion Base, UN-Nerv Primary Headquarters**, **the Geo-Front**

**Tokyo-3, Hanagawa Prefecture, Imperial Republic of Japan (NERV Extraterritory)**

**July 16, 2029 (Present Day)**

"Yui!"

Ikari Gendou gasped awake, sitting up straight, hand over his bare chest, his heart pounding just as much as it had that day. His breath contracted as he saw where he was, realized everything. That it had _happened_. He almost sobbed, but managed to twist it, choke it back.

He calmed, very slowly, his face becoming once more a study of straight lines and obtuse angles.

Reached to the bedside, plucked his orange-tinted glasses from their resting place. He closed his eyes, and concentrated on nothing, remembering to breathe. Just like he'd been taught—in and out. In and out. Slowly, agonizingly slowly, the raw agony subsided. Healed over once more, leaving only the dull ache of her loss.

His phone vibrated dully at the side of the bed. He picked it up, flipped it open, watched as the SH-604 NERV Special activated. Japanese text scrolled left across the screen, the MAGI System confirmed its connection, and selected the "Calendar" icon from the applications; instantly, the calendar's neat green lines came to life against the stark black background. As the note appeared on the screen, expanding from the day's date, Gendou allowed himself the slightest, tiniest ghost of a smile.

_-Promotion ceremony for (Lt. Colonel) Katsuragi_

_-Director of Operations (Katsuragi) sworn in_

_-Shinji arrives_

He looked to the photos at his bedside, eyes falling on the one set face-up. A dark-haired boy of eight years grinned back at him, face broadened in a smile, his eyes closed. Behind him, the mighty trunks of cedar and pine trees obscured the sun, its light flickering through them. There was just enough similarity, Gendou reflected, for it to hurt a little to look at him.

_Shinji_.Would his son still look anything like this small, captured memory?

The buzzing of the phone once more distracted him; he blinked as the screen made a flashing red hexagon, reading "EMERGENCY" in its midsection. His fingers moved deftly to answer it, the screen showing the face of one of the Central Dogma crew…his brow furrowed. They were calling him directly from Command, which wasn't good.

"Report."

"Sir…" Ibuki Maya swallowed hard. "Ah… Satellites just picked up an object in high orbit above the South China Sea. We're getting anomalous readings from it; the MAGI are analyzing now."

"What's the data say so far?"

"Readings suggest it's causing localized space-time distortion corresponding directly to an Incursion. MAGI currently project 79% probability that this is a Pattern Blue…officially it's two affirmatives, one conditional affirmative." She paused. "Trajectory suggests touchdown will be in Sagami Bay proper, about five miles off the coast of Odawara."

"Understood. I'll be there momentarily. Notify the JSSDF and UNCF joint chiefs. Take Tokyo-3 to Condition Two and begin evacuation procedures." He closed the phone without waiting for a reply; he knew his orders would be carried out.

He was, after all, the Commander.

As he stood to dress, he closed his eyes, and spoke into the darkness of his quarters.

"Goodbye, Yui-chan," he whispered. "I'll be back soon." His face creased in the approximation of a smile once more. "Shinji's coming home."

* * *

**Old Hakone Waterfront Marriott Hotel, **

**Tokyo-3, Hanagawa Prefecture, Imperial Republic of Japan (NERV Extraterritory)**

Lieutenant Colonel Katsuragi Misato, United Nations Combined Forces, had a hangover.

This, in and of itself, was not unusual. Given the fact that the young officer has a fridge whose entire purpose is to store 16 oz. cans of Yebisu, which she shamelessly admits to drinking as though it was water, hangovers are quite common for Misato. This particular hangover, however, was somewhat more severe than usual, and was coupled with a blank area of her memory as regarded last night.

_Shit. Great, Misa. Great. Get tanked as fuck the night before you get sworn in as Chief Operations Officer. Shinji must be so Goddamned proud of you._ She grimaced and punched the bed, trying to will her head to stop pounding.

She patted the bed beside her. Empty. Okay, so no bad decisions of _that_ sort. _Good_.

"Wark."

A familiar voice addressed her from the foot of the bed, and Misato grimaced as she sat up, careful to do so slowly, to look into the beady green eyes of a certain genetically- engineered penguin, one Pen-Pen. "Good mornin' to you too," Misato growled.

"Wark," the penguin said, cocking his head to the side as he stared at his owner, then nudged her hand with his beak. _Feed me, woman._

"Didn't Shinji feed you…?" she grumbled, leaning to absently pet the red tufts of feathers that formed comical "eyebrows" on his head, which made him coo happily, then nudge her hand again, as if to note that the affection was _not_ a substitute for delicious fish.

She grumbled, stumbling from the covers, pushing the long dark violet tresses of her hair back, groaning as her headache redoubled itself behind her temples. Buttoning the blouse that hung loose and jacket-like around her shoulders, the Lt. Colonel poked her head out of the bedroom and into the main area of the hotel suite, Pen-Pen following her.

"Oi! Shinji-kun? Did you feed th' damn penguin? He's whining at me."

The soft clatter of laptop keys stilled as the dark-haired teen turned back to her. "Oh! U-um, yes. I…" He bit his lip. "I got fresh fish, cause it was on sale, and the canned…I think it made him…greedy. I'm sorry." Blue-grey eyes flicked dolefully up to meet her own.

Ikari Shinji, Misato had realized long ago, was one of those boys who was never going to outgrow the label "cute". In his thin, almost fragile frame, there were only a few echoes of his father, the hard, legendary Commander of UN-NERV. Where the elder Ikari might've been carved from stone, much about Shinji was soft; the tan of his skin, his big eyes, even his short-cropped and very dark hair.

_He must get it from his mother_.

She sighed, grinned, and reached to ruffle his hair. "I've told you, Shinji-kun, don't go apologizing over something so trivial! Besides, it's not like you can help the bird being a brat, really."

"Wark-_wark_ wark wark." Pen-Pen pawed at her leg with his tiny flipper claws.

Shinji smiled, and allowed her to muss his hair. "No, I suppose not. Oh! Ah, I…I packed…most of your bag, Misato-sensei, and mine was packed since last night. I also organized the food and put it into the coolers…so…we're ready to go when you are. And breakfast is on the counter." He pointed to a paper plate, carefully covered with a napkin.

Misato felt her face redden. "Shinji-kun…Thank you," she managed. _God, this kid still surprises me after…how long has it been? I've forgotten._

The image of a somber seven-year-old boy, his face trying vainly to enforce calm and hold back weakness-indicating tears, flashed across her vision, his hand clutching tight the S-DAT that would become his totem, the father's last gift to his son. _And now, look at him. _

She felt her heart do flip-flops. _Look at the beautiful boy we're making into our soldier._

"I-It's no problem, sensei! Really!" Shinji smiled again. "Honestly, I like cooking, and, well, ever since you tried to make dinner for Akagi-hakase, it's seemed better that you not try to cook…"

The Lieutenant Colonel huffed. "Look, that was _not_ my fault. It's that damn Korean oven Ritsu just _insists_ on using, and the numbers and everything don't _mean_ the right things…"

Shinji held up his hands placatingly. "Okay, okay!"

"Tell you what, I'll be in charge of dinner tonight, when we get to the new place, okay? Even if I let you—_let_ you—cook, I'll decide what we're having," Misato pounded the table decisively. "As your guardian, it's my place to take charge of things like this!"

"So…we're definitely going to get to the new apartment?" Shinji sounded slightly relieved. "I thought the Doctor might want to run tests again, you know, since we're both coming to NERV HQ and all…"

"Nah, no sync tests or anything today. Just my little promotion gig," she affirmed. "It might take a couple hours, you know how the UNCF is, and how well their schedules mesh with NERV's, but after that we can probably get going pretty quickly."

There was a long pause, and then Shinji spoke again, quieter.

"…Is…Is Father going to be there?"

Misato bit her lip as she smiled, trying not to force the expression.

"He is. I'm sure he's looking forward to seeing you again."

* * *

**Sagami Bay, the Pacific Ocean**

**Off the Coast of Hanagawa Prefecture**

The sound of a thunderclap echoed out over the desert of the water as a plume of red rose hundreds of feet into the air, the first disturbance to the Sagami waters since the last oceanic fish had died thirteen years ago. Waves of wine-red cascaded out from the point where the Arrival had occurred. Beneath the waters, he that had come from beyond the stars rested a moment longer, refused to abandon immediately the fetal self-embrace that had come with Transition, with the final stage of his journey across forever. For here, in the lifeless waters, he felt safe. His Song radiated out from him.

Slowly, ever so slowly, from far away, he heard the melodious answer.

_**Father**_

Massive, sleek arms, hundreds of meters long, uncurled from his barrel chest. Biceps flexed beneath arcing plates of pure bone; spurs and plates of bone sprouted from his back. Tridactyl claws slid forth and snapped, predatory, cold and precise. Within the hollow sockets of the stygian bone-mask, the ruined, vaguely avian skull that seemed to form his face, a cold light began to glow and shimmer.

_**Father, I hear you**_

He rose, and reality bent around the curves and angles of his form. The satellites and cameras compositing the image of the xenoform would blur and distort each time they caught a full shot of the creature's body, as if rejecting its existence. To the onlookers on shore, it seemed that he was like something made of sand, but in the process of becoming glass.

The Core burned red, like a sun caught within a prison of stone, seeming to pulse within his cage of four ribs. Green, slick skin, the color of rotting kelp, flowed as he stirred. It became scales, then fur, then almost human, then scales once more. The bird-skull mask twitched, its hollow eyes flickered and darted.

On the shore, the screaming began as the onlookers started to claw at their eyes.

_**Father, I am coming**_

He could feel them even now. Disruptions in the Song, like black specks against the Pleroma. The Lilim. So many were the aberrations, and he recoiled. Flared the Light of His Soul. They were many, but they were small. Their Path was lesser. In him was completion.

In the Dead Sea Scrolls, they had named him Sachiel. The Angel of Water. The Covering of God. Fourth of the Witnesses. In his hand was the spear that sundered nations, in his eyes the wrath of God. He moved. A mountain walked or stumbled.

Sachiel went forth, to find his Father. Only then could Reclamation and Unity begin.

Only then would they be together once more.

* * *

**Zion Base, UN-Nerv Primary Headquarters**, **the Geo-Front**

**Tokyo-3, Hanagawa Prefecture, Imperial Republic of Japan (NERV Extraterritory)**

Fuyutsuki met him on the elevator up to Central Dogma, the elder man fiddling with the purple badge at his collar as he stepped inside, nodding to his superior. Gendou nodded back, his gaze moving just sidelong to study Kouzou.

_Something's wrong._

"You're going to start guessing if I don't tell you," the old academic sighed, giving a small smile, "so I'll just come out and say it—the JSSDF marched their people in here as soon as Condition Two was declared. General Aoyama and his cronies are in Central Dogma, even as we speak."

Gendou sighed, moving a gloved hand to massage his temple. "Wonderful. Did they learn nothing from the disaster in Moscow?"

"The idea of Absolute Territory is hard for a military mind to grasp, Ikari. Not surprising—in war, no territory is ever absolute." Fuyutsuki smiled slightly. "Besides, you must have guessed they'd have to try."

"I suppose it'll confirm that it _is_ the Fourth Angel, if everything goes as we expect, but I pity the soldiers down there." White-clad fingers pressed his glasses up against the bridge of his nose as he sighed. "Katsuragi isn't going to appreciate these developments as is…"

"Do you think _he's_ ready…?" Fuyutsuki's voice softened just slightly.

"…He's been with Katsuragi for years. He's had the tests, he's received what training we can give him without letting him actually pilot. It's time he got to see what we're leading up to, no?" Gendou cracked his knuckles.

The older man ran his fingers through his hair. "…the fate of our world, on the shoulders of children. Isn't it cruel?"

"Very much so."

* * *

The doors opened, and the two strode onto the command tier of Central Dogma like ancient kings entering their grand hall. NERV bridge staff snapped to attention. Ibuki's voice rang out, high and echoing. "Commander on deck!"

"At ease," Gendou ordered smoothly.

"You're _late_, Ikari!" snapped an irritable old Japanese voice from the command desk in front of him. Gendou didn't even look—he could've told Aoyama's voice from a mile away, and he knew that the old battleaxe, true to form, wasn't even turning around for him. "_Your_ xenoform's already made landfall in Odawara."

"Mm." He raised his voice just enough to carry across the expanse of NERV's bridge. "On screen, full composite."

The 3D imaging grid flickered and changed, and the live feed whirred to life. Techs cried out and gasped—many covered their faces or shielded their eyes. Even Fuyutsuki winced openly as the vast form showed itself, huge green legs striding through tank fire and arcing artillery, as if the shells and missiles weren't even gnats. One particularly brave VTOL skimmed in close, and the vast creature raised its arm, seeming to study its enemy with its empty bird-skull eyes. The bone-like spike in its elbow suddenly flared with eldritch light. Too late, the pilot tried to move.

There was a thrumming sound, and a lance of violet energy flashed out faster than the eye could see—or was it that the eye didn't want to see?—and in either case, skewered the VTOL, blowing it apart in mid-air. The other aircraft opened up with a massed volley of their missiles, making it rear back.

"All missiles have hit the target, but there's no effect!"

"They've made it angry," Fuyutsuki sighed. "They'll regret that…"

A halo of too-solid light flashed into sudden existence around the creature's head and huge, rounded shoulders. The world seemed to flash golden and ripple, and the beast rose into the air with an unearthly cry and a whirl of superheated air that flung clouds of dust up from the Odawaran ground, spreading its arms wide. Half of the remaining squadron screamed, burned, and died, the other VTOLs swarming away like panicked bees…placidly, the huge monstrosity landed, smashing road and building with one of its mighty legs, and swiveled on its slender waist to continue its march.

"The 219th is disengaging! Losses are too high!"

"Lousy fucking flyboy bastards!" Aoyama's snarl was an attempt to hide the sudden quaver in the old warmonger's voice. Gendou wasn't fooled, and he felt the corner of his mouth twitch in the slightest of smirks. "Fine! Tell the artillery divisions and the tank battalions to open fire—throw _everything_ we have at it! Even the 4th Division's experimental warheads!"

"That's right!" one of the other Self-Defense Force generals—Gendou couldn't remember his name, and he doubted Fuyutsuki could either—shouted. "Destroy the target at all costs! Call the SAC bomber group from Yokohama!"

Gendou turned away as more of Odawara was consigned to "acceptable losses" in the form of fire, shrapnel, and rubble, looking to Fuyutsuki. "I'd say this is physical proof of an AT Field, wouldn't you, old friend?"

"Even if it didn't, I'd say that lance in his arm does a pretty good job of sundering," the old Professor quipped. "That's the Fourth, all right, no doubt about it. Sachiel is here."

Gendou's smile was mirthless.

* * *

**Route 545, Tokyo-3 Metropolitan Area**

**Approximately 70 Miles Out From the Zion Checkpoint**

No sooner had Misato and he piled into her blue Renault Alpine GTA, Shinji thought, than the day had gone to hell.

First of all came the sirens, and the loud rumbling all around as lockbolts loosed, mechanisms came to life, and the city of Tokyo-3 decided to demonstrate why it was a fortress city. "CONDITION 2" blared in large red letters from warning signs all around. Pen-Pen had yelped and dove into the car, hiding under one of the boxes in the back seat.

Shinji gaped. "Uh," he managed.

Misato, however, had been gaping too, so he didn't feel _too _bad about it.

"They're taking the city to Condition Two? But…But there's nothing of that sort scheduled for…" His sensei's hand shot to her chest, gripped tight the silver cross that always hung from her neck, and she whispered a benediction—_Our Father_, the first three lines. She usually said it while fall-down drunk.

Sober, it wasn't amusing. In fact, Shinji felt the color draining from his face. He squeezed his eyes shut and tried to fight the involuntary shaking of his limbs…to no avail.

_No, no, no! I have to be strong…I mustn't run away!_

His guardian's other hand fumbled for her phone. "Please no, please no, please no," she muttered, tabbing options on the lower screen once she'd flipped it open…and then, stopping, she simply stared, wide-eyed. A soft hiccup came from her throat.

"Mi-Misato-sensei…Is it…?" He couldn't get the words out.

He couldn't remember Misato's voice being this soft when she thought he was an old boyfriend that one night. He couldn't remember his sensei's voice being this soft _ever_.

"Yes. It's one of them. It's an Angel."

A cold hand seemed to grip his heart inside his chest, and he wet his lips.

"…W-we have to hurry, then…"

* * *

Now he and his teacher were speeding far too fast along an abandoned highway, hugging each curve, Misato pressing the pedal into the metal and muttering continuously; for his part, he was trying not to fidget and cast backwards glances so much that they disturbed the sleeping mutant penguin on his lap.

_An Angel. An invader from another world is actually here._

"Piece of shit, piece of shit, piece of shi—Can you _believe_ I have 12 payments left on this fucker, Shinji-kun? It's _highway robbery_." Shinji giggled at that, half out of sheer nerves, and Misato smiled ruefully.

A sign pointing them towards the Zion Checkpoint zipped by as Misato continued gunning them down the road, and after a long pause, Shinji spoke again, having to force the words out of his mouth.

"…Is it true…? That you can't look at them directly?"

"Yeah. Ritsuko says it has to do with their material make-up. Data from the Third Angel says—get this—that the matter an Angel is made of exists in mulitple quantum states at the same time. They break physics as _well_ as anything they step on! Lousy science-defying bastards."

Her smile was more than a little forced. He remembered the first time, as a much, much younger boy, he'd caught a glimpse of the ugly shrapnel scar that ran up her left side and under her breast. Shinji winced. "S-sorry, sensei. I didn't mean to bring up—y-you know…"

Katsuragi bit her lip, and turned to put an arm down and squeeze his shoulder. "It's all right, Shinji. We have to face things head-on. Keep moving forward. Right?"

"R-right." The warmth, the love in her smile, made him relax and forgive himself for hurting her. He wondered for a brief moment who else knew that Second Impact was an open wound for Katsuragi Misato.

_She's so much more fragile than she looks…just like me._

Unbidden, an image came to his mind—water lapping against the side of a lake shore, the sun filtered thr—

His reverie disappeared as the world around them shook like a snowglobe in the hands of an angry child. Pen-Pen screeched and tried to escape, scratching Shinji as the boy wrapped his arms tightly and grit his teeth. Misato swore a long string of sailor's curses as she screeched the car to a halt.

"Don't look at it! _Don't look at it!_"

But his ears suddenly filled with dying cicadas and the sound of chittering apes and—

_**Father**_

For a terrible moment, his eyes disobeyed his guardian. Then he wrenched them shut and his gaze back to the car floor, trying to force his breakfast back into his stomach and his thoughts to anything else. Anything but the gigantic green-black shape he'd glimpsed, the emaciated giant, a victim of the Holocaust writ thousands of stories tall.

_**Can you hear me, Father**_

Its skin had crawled. _Crawled _as the light bent around it. Huge pale gills breathed on its sides, flaps of skin seeming to ooze wetly as the horrible thing breathed and melted and lived but it shouldn't, it shouldn't—_no_. No, **_don't think about it_!** His nerves rang wildly, and he fought down desparately the urge to vomit once again.

_**I need you, Father**_

Something had looked at him from behind the hollow eyes of a mask like a bird's shaven skull. Like Pen-Pen aeons dead and staring at him. Something had _seen_, was _seeing_. It was _looking at him_, it was _seeing_—

Then strong motherly arms embraced him and flattened him down, and there was a symphony of exploding light, followed by blackness.

* * *

An N2 weapon, as they are commonly called, was developed by the American DARPA in the days before Second Impact. It was designed as a city-buster as effective as a nuclear bomb, but without the devastating after-effects of fallout and radiation poisoning.

The principle of its operation is thusly—about 0.5 grams of Penning-trapped antimatter is suddenly loosed from its cage and allowed to contact about 0.5 grams of refined carbon—a tiny diamond. This produces what is known in scientific circles as an "annihilation event." The explosion that results produces energy in excess of 90 _terajoules_—which is enough to power Tokyo-3 for a full week—and is approximate to 20 kilotons of TNT.

N2 weapons cost _millions_ to produce. They redefine maps when they're dropped—the Glass Forest in the northeastern Sahara is the result of a multiple N2 drop. These are weapons of mass destruction in every sense of the word.

When it struck, to the Lilim's credit, Sachiel was quite surprised.

The Lilim weapon, for a few brief moments, burned his skin. Seared him. None of their other attacks had been able to do that—the Light had turned their power aside without his even thinking it, unable to breach the Territory that Father had blessed Sachiel and all his siblings with. But this—_this hurt_!

A howl of pain and frustration broke from the Fourth Angel, and in the midst of the annihilation's maelstrom of released energy, he flared the Light of His Soul to burning brightness. The concentric hexagons of the AT Field flashed through and phased space, stopped the explosion as surely as a wall.

Sachiel seethed, even as his body began to repair itself and the weapon's aftermath dispersed. He was done playing. If the Lilim wished to dare the wrath of the Gifted, so be it.

The mask that was his face shifted, twisted. Vast red pustules expanded and popped with healing blood, leaving unmarked skin on his burnt shoulders. Green skin flowed, calcified, _birthed_ his second face. Red light burned from his eyes.

Let the Lilim come again, if they dared. He would show them Father's gifts, and his fury.

* * *

"Shinji-kun!"

_Misato-sensei._ Storm-blue eyes fluttered open, and he groaned in discomfort, nearly choked on the sand in his mouth.

"Wark." _Oh, and there's Pen-Pen._

"Oh, thank God." His teacher's arms brought him up, helped him to a position that didn't hurt, and he spit out the sand, coughing. "Are you all right?"

He moved an arm, then a leg, and nodded. "I…I think so. I just got some sand in my mouth. Is the car okay?"

Pen-Pen scuttled to Shinji's leg, cooing, as the boy stood up—Shinji managed a weak smile, and leaned down to skritch the penguin's ear-tufts.

"It's upside down, but it's intact," Misato grumbled. "Thankfully, we're actually a little closer to the Checkpoint."

"That light…what _was_ that? I remember I saw the Angel, then…" His eyes went wide. "W-wait! The…The Angel!"

"It's gone," Misato assured him softly. "We two lowly humans are apparently beneath its notice—after recovering from the attack, it just…walked onward. As for the light…_well, _apparently no one told the JSSDF it's a bad idea to set off an N2 weapon in a metro area. Goddamn morons," she growled.

"Th-that was an _N__2_ ? Shouldn't we be _dead_? Th-the annihilation event…!"

"I guess you're just a little good luck charm," Misato smiled. "Now c'mon, we gotta push the car back over."

Shinji rolled his eyes and smiled weakly. "Heh. Some good luck…"

* * *

**Zion Base, UN-Nerv Primary Headquarters**, **the Geo-Front**

**Tokyo-3, Hanagawa Prefecture, Imperial Republic of Japan (NERV Extraterritory)**

The monitors went to snow as the N2 bomb detonated, its EM shockwave not even getting an "incoming" before it struck.

"_Yes!_" cheered the general to Aoyama's right. "Direct hit! _That_ got the bastard!" He turned, smirking, to Gendou. "Sorry, Ikari, but you won't be needed this time!"

Gendou shrugged just slightly, giving a seemingly good-natured smile.

"All readings from the impact point are inconclusive due to the annihilation event," Lt. Hyuuga reported crisply. "We'll have visual back momentarily…"

The general to Aoyama's left set down the phone with a heavy sigh. "We have confirmation that both the First and Second are completely gone, sir, and Iruma lost over 48% of what they sent out…currently, AWACS has no report on the target status, however."

"Their sacrifice won't soon be forgotten," the old man rumbled. "We'll make a monument over the corpse of this alien bastard, to all of them." He brought a cigar to his mouth. "Angels, heh…So much for that. And so much for this godforsaken A-whatever Field you were on about, Ika—"

"Visual coming back online!"

The static cleared, and the cigar dropped from the aghast military man's mouth.

At the crater's center, the huge form stood, as if completely unharmed—close-ups showed it'd been lightly burned, at most. And if the strange red phenomena on its skin were any indication, it was already recovering.

"Astounding regenerative capacity, even for the Fruit of Life," Fuyutsuki murmured.

"I…I don't understand," Aoyama managed. "That..that was from the Tokyo-2 Defense Arsenal. That was… was our _trump card_. H-How…?" He turned to Gendou, his eyes wide and sorrowful.

It stung the old man even deeper that Ikari looked at him with something like sympathy.

"No one knows how the Absolute Territory works, General. The discovery in Antarctica and the entirety of the old GEHIRN research budget were put into discovering the nature of the AT Field; an entire scientific field has sprung up around it. The results were inconclusive." Gendou pushed his glassed up on his nose. "They can do it because they were born to do it. It's part of what they are."

Aoyama sighed. His mouth tasted bitter. "…We never had a chance, did we?"

"I could lie, if you liked."

"No need, Ikari. I'm surrendering control of this operation to NERV." He fixed Gendou with a glare from beneath his massive eyebrows. "Take this bastard out."

Gendou smirked as he adjusted his glasses again. "NERV exists for that very purpose."

* * *

The car train whirred and clacked loudly as it sped down the tracks at near-bullet speed, the Renault swaying slightly on the platform. The Checkpoint had been in automated mode; at one swipe of their NERV IDs, it'd let them through.

"…So…what'll happen once we get there…?"

Misato sighed, resting her head in her hand. "I don't know. I honestly don't. I couldn't even get in contact with Ritsuko when I called…They're talking about deploying one of the Units, and there's even talk of rapid-defrosting Unit-01."

Shinji blinked. A phantom girl's face with wine-red eyes flashed in his vision.

_Shinji, I'd like you to meet someone._

"…But isn't Ayanami still injured…? From, from when she fought in Russia, and that test you told me about…"

_She was…part of one of your mother's projects. Her name is Ayanami Rei. _

"Yes. Which is what bothers me," Misato grumbled. "Just because you have good sync scores doesn't mean I'm going to let them…" She shook her head.

_She's a very special person._

Shinji shook his head, clearing the images away and smiled weakly. "…I'm sure Father has a plan. He always d—" The boy's voice suddenly went away, and hie expression changed, for the first time in a long while, to an out-and-out excited grin as he pointed to the ground below them. "S-sensei! Misato! Look out the window! It's the Geo-Front!"

Misato, too, allowed herself to grin as she looked out the window. "Our little self-sustained fortress…It really is amazing, isn't it?"

The cavern that their train had entered was a massive, completely perfect dome carved out of the earth below Tokyo-3, miles and miles deep, the walls made unnaturally smooth by the UNCF's addition of massive armored layers, pure carbon bound beneath thick impact-absorbing foam beneath battleship steel. Painted and shined reflective, they formed a sort of artificial sky, in concert with the sunlight that came streaming in from the solar collection plants above ground. Magnetic rails wound around the breadth of the dome like wires of light, and Shinji felt slightly breathless realizing that he and his guardian were no more than passengers on _one_ of those rail lines.

Most of the ground beneath them was covered in thick forest, though a few areas had been cleared for farming; a native Japanese ecosystem, supposedly modeling the biodiversity pre-Impact, was contained within the preserve of the forest. At the center, however, there loomed a massive pyramid of black glass, easily surpassing anything at Giza, with a slender, curved skyscraper hugging its side, and a huge square reservoir of shimmering fresh water kept opposite that. On its side, you could see the emblem of their organization emblazoned, the apple and its fig-leaf in red.

This was _Zion_, the international headquarters of UN-NERV, ground central for the salvation of Man.

"It's so huge," Shinji breathed. "God, it's like a little world...it's beautiful, down there. I wonder…are we allowed to visit the nature preserve…?"

"We'd better be," Misato grinned. "We're NERV personnel, after all! Now—ah, here we are!" She grunted softly as she managed to pull a map from the armrest compartment and shove it closed, unfurling its maze of lines—a transit map, marked with the NERV fig-leaf-and-apple logo.

Shinji's brow arched. "I thought you said you knew Zion Base like the back of your hand, Misato-sensei?"

"I-I do! Hush! This is just insurance!"

* * *

"_Secondary cooling cycle complete. All personnel, evacuate the cooling tank immediately. Repeat, all personnel, evacuate the cooling tank immediately."_

The wetsuited woman broke the surface of the coolant as the technicians gathered around her, helping disengage her from the oxygen tank on her back as she undid her flippers. Wasting no time, she pulled the mask from her mouth, speaking crisply, and began pulling down the zipper on the back to expose the two-piece bathing suit beneath, along with her mop of platinum blonde hair.

"I want the left arm's conductive plating fully defrosted and ready to go in three minutes, understand? And don't forget the apoptosis data! That's absolutely vital!"

There was a rumbling, far in the distance, that seemed to accentuate that vitality.

"Roger that, Doctor!"

"_Attention, Dr. Akagi—attention, Dr. Akagi. Chief Operations Officer, Lieutenant Colonel Kasturagi, has arrived at Shaft S36, together with Ikari Shinji. Repeat—"_

"No need," the woman put in, tossing the goggles aside. Ritsuko Akagi, Chief of NERV Technical and Director of Project E, gently massaged her temples, the mole on her right cheek moving as she grimaced.

"I can't believe it, Misato…You're late _again_…"

* * *

"Damn it, elevators again? We _took_ Route 8! This should have us to the main control area by now!" Misato growled at the map she was holding.

Shinji sighed, idly looking over the "Welcome to Tokyo-3" packet he'd received from the Section-2 agents that had met them on landing. "I knew we were lost…"

"It's this map's fault! It confused me!"

The Ikari boy's eyebrow arched once more. "…wasn't that 'insurance'?"

Misato glared. "Don't be a smart-aleck!" Her brown eyes then flicked to the elevator wheel, which was counting down. "Oh, good, someone's coming! They'll be able to help u—"

There was a chime, the elevator doors opened, and Misato's face fell as she met a pair of coldly furious green eyes beneath a familiar blonde mop.

"Ah…Ritsuko! F-fancy meeting you here…"

"We're in Condition Two, literally _steps_ away from Condition One, and you find a way to be twelve full minutes late, Lt. Colonel Katsuragi," the scientist said archly. "How _do_ you do it?"

"Lighten up, Ritsu-chan!" Misato whined. "I'm not used to this place…"

"You've been here seven times in the past three months," Shinji put in offhandedly, glancing to Ritsuko behind the booklet. "Good morning, Dr. Akagi."

"Traitor!" Misato fumed.

Ristuko ignored her friend, smiling warmly at the boy. "Was she a handful as usual, Shinji-kun?"

"I am _ordering_ you not to answer that!"

Shinji bit his lip to keep from smirking, and simply looked to the doctor, who giggled behind a raised hand.

_He reminds me so much of his father, sometimes._

An announcement suddenly echoed overhead as Ritsuko lead the group into an elevator, tapping a button. _"All hands, go to Condition One. Repeat, we are at Condition One."_

"…It's that bad…I'm sorry, Ritsuko. I should've known," Misato sighed. "We actually had a close encounter—_just_ outside of contamination risk—on 545…"

Ritsuko blinked, her eyebrows shooting up. "It got that close…? Damn it. Aoyama really wasn't being careful this time." She shook her head. "Well, it can't be helped. Actually…we're headed to the cages now, anyway. The Commander will meet us there." She glanced to Shinji. "He's looking forward to seeing you again."

Shinji's grin was fraught with nervousness. "I…S-so am I…"

_Father…_

"Wait a minute. Does this mean that you really _are_ going to use Unit-01…?"

"Well…look, I'll explain the details when we get there, Misa-chan, I'd rather not pre-empt the Old Man," Ritsuko replied as the elevator doors opened, leading the trio into a dark room, lit only by a single red, horizontal light. "_Cage access requested: authorization Akagi-Ritsuko-30-Alpha-3-5-Theta_."

The red light turned to green, and a door slid open, leading them onto a dimly lit green gantry plentifully marked with hazard tape and caution signs. Akagi raised an arm, and the platform they were on flooded with light.

* * *

Looking down at them—even at the height of its shoulder, they were tiny—was the face of a gigantic purple demon clad in armor.

It looked, Shinji thought, nothing so much like a ceratopsian dinosaur, or some sort of lizard, forced to fit the mould of a human shape. The head's sloping, shield-like quality in the crown, and its massive single horn, belonged to a bygone era…hence the strange, mandibular attachments on its cheeks, tinged with green.

It would've looked ridiculous, except that the construction was professional. Smooth. The orange neck seemed to flow into the purple-armored shoulders, and to be carefully, purposefully reinforced by what he could see of the breastplate.

And then there were the eyes. The huge, pale, hollow eyes, with red markings over them, like scars. Like _its_ eyes. The Angel's eyes. He shivered.

Shinji felt himself sweat, swallowed against the rush of fear and awe. Blinked.

_I wasn't ready. Misato-sensei was right…I wasn't ready._

"…So…this is it…"

"Yes," Ritsuko replied, her voice soft and reverent…half a mother with her child, half a priest in the presence of their god's own avatar. "This is what Project E exists to create. Mankind's trump card in our last war." She smiled, her eyes never leaving the giant, not noticing Misato's frown or Shinji's open-mouthed gape. "This is an Evangelion."

"Unit-01, the Test-Type, to be precise."

The voice echoed from above, and all three sets of eyes were drawn as if by magnetism to the speaker in his cradle far above them. From behind orange-tinted glasses, cold grey eyes stared back at them, drifting over them all impassively, pausing only on the boy that gazed up at him with rapture on his face…yes, it was still close enough to memory to hurt.

Shinji swallowed hard, and spoke first, breaking the silence that had claimed the room after the man's words.

"Hello, Father."

Ikari Gendou allowed himself another tiny smile, for his son's sake. "Hello, Shinji. It's been a while."

**((TO BE CONTINUED))  
**

_**Fly me to the moon, **_

_**And let me play among the stars…**_

**

* * *

**

**AUTHOR'S NOTES!**

Well, there we go. It's the first part of ANGEL ATTACK all over again, that first episode you've seen and read and heard till it _bled out of your ears_…only…it isn't, is it?

I _really_ hope I've drawn in people's interest. Yes, this is clearly an alternate universe; no, it's not a retelling of _Rebuild_, as should be readily obvious, but it's meant to blend elements of the rapidly becoming wonderful tetralogy with the classic series we all know and love, along with my own spice.

_Evangelion_ was my first anime, and it's the one that just won't go away, the one I keep coming back to the well of and drinking from. There's a reason it basically prints money in Japan—this story is powerful. Very much so.

So this is intended to be my love letter to Eva—to Shinji, to Rei, to Asuka, to Gendou, to Misato and Ritsuko and even fucking Pen-Pen. All the characters that told us "congratulations", that let us down, and that have come back in shiny new animation to do God knows what (Anno, you magnificent _bastard_). All the Evangelions and all the Angels, Lovecraftian monsters in their own right. Everyone. Even Mana and Jet Alone.

The fic is currently rated T because I think it's safe for teenage readers.

If that changes, and I think the story has become too dark, or too many sexual elements show up, the rating will change to M. This is about a 60% probability at this point that that will happen. _Evangelion_ isn't a happy story, and I don't intend to change that.

But maybe—just maybe—we'll earn a happy ending.

Please obey my clichéd demand for reading and reviews. I'll be simple about this—if I don't see interest, the likelihood that a new chapter will show up will be exceedingly low. I don't care if you leave me a fifteen-page diatribe on how _awful_ this shit is, at least I made you _read_ it. The first chapters may write themselves, but an AU built without reader interest is not going to fly, you know?

Thank you very much.


	2. Aggression

**Like an angel that has no sense of mercy…**

** Rise, young man, and become legend.**

**DISCLAIMER: **Based on the anime series and film tetralogy created by Hideaki Anno. This is a derivative work that may be removed at the discretion of _Evangelion_'s creators any time they wish.

_Neon Genesis Evangelion_, its characters, and all related trademarks, are copyright 1995, GAINAX

_Rebuild of Evangelion,_ its characters, and all related trademarks are copyright 2007, Studio Khara

**NEON GENESIS EVANGELION: **

**NEW COVENANT**

Written by: Nagisa Akurei

**Second Chapter: Aggression**

"_And what rough beast, its hour come round at last_

_Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?"_

_**-William Butler Yeats, "The Second Coming"**_

_**

* * *

**_

**Zion Base, UN-Nerv Primary Headquarters**, **the Geo-Front**

**Tokyo-3, Hanagawa Prefecture, Imperial Republic of Japan (NERV Extraterritory)**

**July 16, 2029**

"Prepare for sortie. We're moving out."

The proclamation rang throughout Evangelion Cage 07, drawing the gaze of a hundred orange-suited technicians and making a clenched fist in Katsuragi Misato's gut as she gazed upwards at the man to whom she'd pledged her loyalty. _Commander…Please, don't mean what I think you mean…_

"Commander!" she broke in, bowing hurriedly. "I-I apologize for my tardiness, and for interrupting! But…then you _do_ mean we'll be sending out Unit-01?"

Gendou nodded, his face an impassive mask. "That's correct, Colonel. I'd like you to report to Central Dogma's command level ASAP."

She clenched and unclenched her fists. "…Sir. _Who _do you intend to pilot it…?"

"Misato," Ritsuko's voice came in soft warning behind her. _Oh no. No. Ricchan, not you too._

Above her, the Commander adjusted his glasses in the usual fashion. "…Ideally, the First Child would pilot, of course…However, NERV Medical reports she is still incapacitated. The Second Child would take time to arrive that we do not have…"

Misato's eyes narrowed, and she shot a lethal glare at the man above her. _You son of a bitch. You fucking son of a bitch.. He's your son. He is your __**son**__, and you told me to take __**care**__ of him, and you go and do this?_

"Then you intend to have Shinji pilot it," she seethed. Shinji choked on his own spittle and coughed behind her.

"Misato!" Ritsuko's voice was more strident, more alarmed.

Gendou, to his credit, remained a mask of calm. "He _has_ been instructed, Colonel. His sync ratio with the Unit-01 synth plug is over 45%...isn't that correct, Dr. Akagi?"

The scientist nodded, deftly drawing a sheaf of papers from her labcoat pocket and flapping them open, trying to hand Misato the readouts without being too obvious, or upset the Chief Operations officer further. It took all of Misato's self-control not to scream at her old friend. "Rei's only been able to sync with it at the 25% borderline, Misa—"

"I don't care," Misato hissed. "He's not ready. He hasn't even been in the real entry plug once—_once_! And you both want to, to throw him into _live combat_? We don't even know if he could make it walk!" _Have you all gone crazy? His training was to defend himself and to sync with it! He's not ready to go against those, those fucking monsters..._

"It isn't ideal." He was a rock. "But the fact remains that the Fourth Angel must be destroyed. Unless you're willing to lodge a formal objection…"

"This is _unconscionable_! Are you hearing yourself? He's your _son_, God damn you!" The technicians were now staring not at Gendou, but at the developing confrontation.

"We don't have any other _choice_, Misato!" Ritsuko's cool, too, was eroding. "He's the only viable option, unless you consider letting the Angel kill us to be viable!"

Misato rounded on the scientist, ignoring the staring technicians. "If this was A—"

"I would tell them to _use_ her, because Rei can't—"

"_Katsuragi._" The Commander's voice cracked through the cage harshly as a whip, silencing both women. "Are you formally objecting?"

The Colonel's eyes squeezed shut.

_I do solemnly pledge to serve and defend the United Nations with true faith and allegiance…_

"…Yes, sir."

"Very well," Gendou sighed. He turned to the multitude of screens beside him and gestured; the image of Fuyutsuki appeared mid-order from Central Dogma. "Sub-Commander, please wake up Rei. There's been a complication."

Fuyutsuki's brow furrowed. "…Is she even capable of piloting?"

"She's not dead, and she's conscious. It'll have to do."

_I'm sorry, Rei_. Misato's teeth couldn't unclench, it seemed. _I'm so sorry. But…You were made for this. _She looked to Shinji.

_He isn't._

_

* * *

_

**Central Hakone District, Tokyo-3 Metropolitan Area**

The Lilim assault was slackening, Sachiel could feel, though his anger with the broodlings remained, driving the biological mechanisms that gathered both the spectrum energies of this low r-state and other, far more foreign influences from the greater Pleroma Beyond within the winding helices of his Engine. It was not unreasonable—the anger that the Angel felt at his persecutors was that of a man bitten by a lesser animal.

The forces which seemed to be light to Lilim eyes, and were not, burned within Sachiel's eyes to an impossible brightness. With a sound that sundered the minds of all unfortunate enough to hear, the Fourth Angel unleashed them, breaking the electromagnetic spectrum in a beautiful gossamer ring, and in a great cross-shaped flare of eldritch fire, they burned a block of the Lilim's pale shadow-city out of existence entirely.

_**Unclean, unclean, unclean**_

What a loathsome ecosystem this was! So _much_ was _forced_ to live together in such a small and cloistered existence, a materiality which was locked off from the majesty of his native realms, and then the Lilim added insult to the injury by building on top of it, making their own pseudo-ecosystem. Sachiel's eyes creased, and his gills flickered in his disgust. He built the light that was not light within his Engine again. Destroying the shadow-blocks had felt good, right. Like the excision of something tumorous. Reclamation would be a mercy to these degraded creatures.

_**The purging of an infection**_

It was strange, Sachiel reflected, that the Other had not taken greater steps to control Her broodlings. Even if she was _enemy_, which was an instinct Sachiel knew in his molecules, a Progenitor of any kind commanded respect and awe above all, forgers of the stars and stalkers of the Pleroma that they were. And so much of the Other was here, it seemed—Her echo was in everything.

His senses needed only to reach out in the slightest to confirm the reason why he felt Her aberrance in this place; yes. He felt _it_ below him. _This_ was the nest of Her brood, the center of the Lilim's power, and it might have drawn him even without hearing Father's cry. It was vast beyond even his knowledge, vast and pulsing, alive on some levels, sleeping on others, inert and dead on still others. It very nearly made him collapse in reverence and despair.

The _Black Egg_. The Vessel of the Other, which had borne Her to this world. Was it any wonder that dread Presence loomed, and his Song faltered…?

Wait, his Song. From deep below, within the Egg, he could feel it answered.

_**Father, you sleep here, you sleep here**_

It had to be so, it just _had_ to be. He could feel the multiphasic cry, the _call _that Sachiel knew so well. Father. Father was here. Reclamation was here. Their new world was waiting. The beautiful rings of energy that encircled the southern pole of this planet would rise to consume it wholesale, and then, then _they would be together_.

He gathered his Engine's power with frenzied delight, burned a wave of annihilation across the ground, his body quivering with desire and triumph.

_**We will be together**_

It was all that mattered.

* * *

**NERV Medical Central Campus, Intensive Care Unit 6**

**Zion Base, UN-Nerv Primary Headquarters**, **the Geo-Front**

The whole of the Geo-Front shook, like the earth above had been struck by an angry God. Alarms wailed, and red lights flashed. "_Attention. Attention. Armored layers 1 through 8 have been breached. All non-essential personnel to emergency standby—repeat, all non-essential personnel to emergency standby," _a synthesized voice droned over the intercoms.

The paitent, of course, ignored it; the warnings did not apply to her. Equally meaningless to her were the nurse's fevered arguments from their station over whether they should be going to their standby areas, if they should call some transport code or another, what paitents could be safely moved. Quite a bit of their dialogue actually revolved around this particular paitent, the fourteen-year-old girl, denoted on the board as "Ayanami, R.", who lay supine in the first bed of Room 112. She was, after all, their most important paitent, as well as a military asset for which there was no replacement.

This dialogue, to the girl, was, too, so much white noise. She barely heard it. All her senses were focused on the active viewscreen across from her hospital bed, where "Commander Ikari Gendou, Eva Cage: 07—SOUND ONLY" read in black letters across its center. Though she couldn't stand without assistance, the paitent of Room 112 was very much at attention. Not even her garnet eyes flickered.

"Rei, Colonel Katsuragi does not believe the plan is viable."

The girl in the bed nodded. "…I understand."

"…Do you have confidence in your own abilities?"

"Yes."

"Report to Evangelion Cage 07 ASAP." The screen went to the NERV logo, then back to the readouts from her medical monitors. Lily-white fingers flexed, moved up carefully, began plucking away the EKG wires.

"Ayanami-san, please reconsider!" It was Ogawa, of course, who had been with her since her hospitalization began. She supposed she should appreciate the woman's concern—it was good that the nurse valued her—but it was an impediment. "You're not—"

"I am capable of piloting. Please bring me my plugsuit. I may need assistance putting it on," she said, and looked to one of the other nurses, continuing to disconnect herself. "If you have not already called Paitent Transportation, I suggest you do so. I do not think I can get to Cage 07 under my own power, nor that Nursing Director Ogawa will allow me."

The nurse looked to Ogawa, who sighed and nodded, before scurrying away. Ignoring them both, the girl sat up in the bed—_pain_. Instantaneous, blinding pain. She grit her teeth, fell back. This was a severe obstacle. It wouldn't keep her from piloting—it was a mere sensory distraction—but it was disadvantageous. "I must request assistance," she said, trying to keep the pain from affecting her vocal inflections, and succeeding to a moderate degree.

The orderlies were bringing her spare plugsuit, the one with the sleeves removed. Good. She would not lose effectiveness from the cast on her other arm. If she was to defeat the Angel, maximum effectiveness would be required.

"Ayanami-san…" Tears were leaking from Ogawa's eyes. "Please, don't strain yourself. If you _must_ do this, please be careful…"

_I do not understand this response…this evident emotional distress. Does she not comprehend what I am? Has Commander Ikari not briefed her? Impossible. He entrusted her with my rehabilitation. She must know that I am without value. That I am false._

Ayanami Rei's crimson eyes flickered once. _That I am not human._

"Your concern is noted, Nursing Director Ogawa. But I must ask you to disregard it," the pale girl said softly. "My death would be inconsequential."

* * *

_I couldn't even speak._

Shinji had stood, silent, after his father had said those monumental words. _To pilot that. Pilot an Evangelion Unit…_

Everyone knew what the Evangelions were, of course. How could you not?_ Mankind's secret weapon. The only things to successfully take down an Angel, when that one landed in Russia…_

The objects of a thousand news articles, Public Service Announcements, international agreements, urban legends, and frenzied protests, they were practically the fulcrum of the post-Impact world. Huge cyborg war machines so powerful that the Pope in Vatican City—who usually stirred only to give blessings or comfort to someplace devastated by the Impact, or to pray for the restoration of life in such-and-such a spot—had interdicted their creation. Had forced a treaty within the UN that no nation could have more than three within its borders, an open countermand to NERV's supposedly absolute authority in matters concerning "the survival of the human race."

Yet at the same time, he had praised their creation, he and half the civilized world—_at last we have defense against the Devil and his False Angels_, the old pontiff had thundered to uproarious applause in St. Peter's Square. They were the defenders of four billion innocent souls, and the Children who piloted them were elite individuals, brave beyond imagining. The other half of the civilized world claimed they were monsters in every sense of the word, child soldiers on a massive and unthinkable scale. They were part of every post-Impact conspiracy theory under the sun, horrors that Man used to stave off extinction at a cost far too high.

For Ikari Shinji, however, the Evangelions had held a special place since he was seven years old, since he'd said farewell to his father that fateful day.

_I wish I could take you with me,_ his father's voice echoed out of that time long ago_, but this is of utmost importance to the entirety of humankind, Shinji. I hope one day you'll understand, and perhaps forgive me._

_Your father works with the Evangelions, Shinji-kun_, Misato's voice whispered. _He's one of the people in charge of them. That's why he's entrusted you to me._

_There's no doubt,_ Ritsuko had said, not knowing he could hear. _He's the Third Child_.

Half of him had known what Dr. Akagi wanted to show him when they walked into the Cage—his heart had thundered in his chest faster than he thought possible. Half of him had been elated. He _was _going to be an Eva pilot! He _was_ special! He could help Father save the world!

The other half of him had been terrified. It had wanted to scream, to cry, to beg his father to choose someone else. Anyone else. To go out there? To fight the horror he had seen on the road? He was fifteen years old! He couldn't fight that thing, Evangelion or no Evangelion! He'd had no idea that was what his training had been for!

The cacophony of his self choked his voice, drained his resolve. And so he'd said nothing.

* * *

While his guardian, Dr. Akagi, and his father fought, Shinji had shrunk away, leaned against a wall, fought the urge to curl up or pull out his S-DAT. Instead he'd stared out across the magenta lake of coolant at the hollow eyes of Unit-01, the mouth in its rictus mechanical grin. Blood-red teeth in a huge violet-and-neon green skull. The Eva seemed so ridiculous when you considered the components, but the whole...that was vast and terrifying.

_It should be my choice, but how would I choose? What in the world would I say?_

The argument had ended, and his father turned away to speak to Fuyutsuki. Misato was next to him…he could feel her squeeze his hand. Half-heartedly, he squeezed back. Ritsuko was giving orders to the techs—something about switching a core unit back to "L-00 induction mode."

_I should pilot it, but I don't want to. Or do I? Do I even know what I want? _Inwardly, he cringed.

_I'm so spineless. I'm so stupid._

If he'd said something, maybe Father would've been proud. But he'd let things be decided for him. He'd let Misato-sensei speak, because that was easier. _Just like I always do._

Zion shook again.

"Akagi-hakase, there's widespread fires in D Block!"

"Seal off the affected areas and vent it out!" Ritsuko snapped. "We'll deal with the damage later—currently, getting Unit-01 ready takes priority! Where is the pilot?"

In answer, the doors on the other side of the umbilical bridge slid open, and a hospital bed was rolled forwards by a team of two softly whispering, worried-looking nurses and a red-clad transport tech. Shinji's eyes were drawn to it like magnets.

There in the bed was a face he remembered from four years ago. The last time, before now, that he'd seen his father, she had been there, insubstantial and unspeaking as a ghost.

Ayanami Rei. The First Child.

Pilot of Unit-00, the hero who'd destroyed the last Angel when it invaded Russia. He blinked. _She's on an IV…? And…my God, she's covered in bandages and things…She really hasn't recovered yet._ Mentally, he forced himself not to study the skintight lines of the plugsuit she wore—_don't ogle an injured girl! Pervert! Lech!_ he snarled at himself mentally.

Waving away the nurses, the incredibly pale girl pulled herself up, wincing and gasping in pain as she did. He heard Misato curse softly and angrily beside him about emotional blackmail and something about his father. He willed it out of his mind.

Ayanami was breathing hard now, but she was sitting up on her own. Methodically, she pulled the IV tube out of her arm, handed it to a nurse.

_She can't pilot it like that. She's going to die_. He shut his eyes tightly. _But I can't stop it. I can't. It's impossible…I'm sorry, Ayanami-san…_

There was the sound of an explosion far overhead, and Zion shook far harder than it had previously...then, something impacted, hard. The lights flickered and shook…the whole of the umbilical bridge pitched, and shouting came as everyone fought not to fall over.

The bed legs folded, cracked, and it pitched diagonally. Predictably, Ayanami slid to the floor with a loud cry of pain even as Shinji was thrown down.

_Oh, no_!

Unthinking, he pulled himself up, sprinted to the girl's side, brought her into his arms and heard her yelp. Felt her stiffen, unwilling tears flecking her inhumanly pale cheeks.

His hand was wet. Wet and warm. And _red_, he saw as he shifted Rei to his other arm; she'd covered it in blood.

Behind him was the demoniac shape of Unit-01, larger than mountains. In front of him was the injured Ayanami.

_I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away. I mustn't run away…_

"Father!" he shouted, as the nurses and technicians lifted Rei out of his arms. "Misato-sensei! Please! I'll do it!"

Gendou turned, blinking. Misato stared at her charge with a stricken look.

He swallowed hard, bit his lip.

"I'll pilot the Evangelion!"

* * *

"Third cooling cycle, complete!" the cage technicians reported over the Central Dogma comm. "Draining commenced! Flywheel rotation on shutdown!"

"Roger that," Maya Ibuki replied, deftly tapping a sequence of buttons. "Now commencing shutdown-signal plug extraction." The diagram flashed onto her screen, along with a real-time display of the plug being removed.

The Evangelion's spinal configuration opened with the hiss of hydraulics as the shutdown plug was drawn away, exposing the hole in its metal-bound spine. Misato wrinkled her nose in distaste from Maya's right side—to her left, Ritsuko watched, enthralled, her green eyes sparkling, only glancing down at the tablet PC in her hand when she had to, tapping in data with a single finger.

"Extraction complete," Ibuki intoned. "Inserting the entry plug!"

"Spinal conductive network unlocked," Shigeru Aoba reported beside her, eyes flicking between the network of screens, monitoring both the readouts from the MAGI System noting that the plug was being inserted and the feed from Cage 07 that showed the hydraulic robot-arm leaning forward and pressing the long shaft of the device into the connector port in the Evangelion's steel-bound spine. "Unit-01 is ready to accept the pilot's neural connection…we are commencing probe needle insertion." The entry plug seemed to screw in as the Eva's connector accepted it, and the red tips of the extruder backed away swiftly.

"How's the depth?" Ritsuko inquired. Maya stuttered momentarily, bringing up the pilot's display on her screen, showing the diagram of the pilot's seat descending within the rainbow interior of the plug, and the unmistakable form of Ikari Shinji seated upon it, his figure pulsing prismatic as he slowed and held at the yellow-colored depth marked "Prime Synchronization Depth"; her eyes also glanced to the window next to it, showing Shinji's brainwave activity as scrolls of green lines moving slowly up the screen.

"He's doing fine, vitals all green...and he's at…prime sync depth and holding! Psychological corruption values are stable…A-10 link is opening, and…yes!" Ibuki's voice carried a note of triumph as she looked to her superior. "We have first contact, ma'am! Maintaining range between plus-2 and minus-5!"

"Good," Akagi nodded. "Lock down the interior array and flood the plug."

"Bring him up on tac-net," Misato ordered. "Shinji-kun, how are you feeling?"

A screen with the boy's face and shoulders flickered into existence, Misato visibly relaxing as it did. "I'm all right, Misato-sensei, honest. This plugsuit is…a little more snug than the sync test ones, th—ah!" Shinji's mouth filled with LCL as he spoke…to the boy's credit, however, he breathed in the orange liquid immediately, letting it fill his lungs and flow into his throat on reflex. On another screen, the Evangelion's armor slid back into place, covering the spine and plug, outlines glowing green as it re-locked. The eyes flashed and glowed an actinic yellow.

"You'll get used to it," Misato bit her lip, forced a lopsided grin. "Remember, the LCL was hard the first time too."

Shinji made a face. "It still tastes weird, sensei. Like...orange juice mixed with blood."

"Engineering reports the umbilical cable is attached, Doctor!" Hyuuga called out.

"Roger that. Begin second contact and initialize the interface. Japanese linguistic norms, thought-synthesis modus _open_—we want Shinji-kun to be able to operate this how he needs," Ritsuko ordered, then looked to the tac-net screen. "Shinji-kun, as per usual, you may experience some slight discomfort as the neural connections open fully...it may be a little more severe in the Eva than the synth plug. Ready?"

The teenage boy nodded. "G-got it, Dr. Akagi."

"Ionizing LCL."

Misato winced along with Shinji as she saw the boy close his eyes and grit his teeth against the sudden influx of neural information—she knew all too well how the A-10 connectors strapped to Shinji's temples worked. After a few moments, however, the boy fluttered his eyes open again, and looked around, blinking. "Ah…Okay! It's working! Erm, I can see outside! I can see the cage!"

"Well, so much for problems with the initial contacts," Ritsuko smiled. "Maya, what's the status on the neural network?"

"Ah…You're going to find this hard to believe, senpai, but points up to 1425 are all clear, and his sync ratio is holding at…57.5%." Maya's eyes were wide as she pointed to a screen where two winding helixes, one red (labeled Unit-01) and one blue (S. Ikari), were intermeshing gorgeously, creating a white wavelength of neural communion. "His harmonics are amazing. It's like Unit-01 was meant for him!"

"Perfect." She turned to Misato. "We're ready."

_Time to bite the fucking bullet._ "Hold on, Shinji-kun," his teacher ordered, then turned to Hyuuga. "Prepare for launch!"

* * *

Within the Entry Plug, Shinji did his best not to fidget…it was, however, admittedly strange to see the umbilical bridge retract, as well as hear the order for it to be retracted.

His fingers curled and uncurled around the butterfly controls…idly he moved a finger up, traced the window with Central Dogma in it several degrees to the right, left it there. _This is different from the HUD systems in the synth plugs...huh. It should be fully thought-controlled, in theory, right?_ He closed his eyes, tried _thinking_ the window larger.

Lo and behold, it was so.

_...Okay, I like this. I wonder what other screens it can bring up...a map, maybe? I'll ask Dr. Akagi later..._

His thoughts were interrupted as the last restraints slid away, and the platform on which the Evangelion was situated began to move along its rail tracks towards the launch pad. Something bumped against his shoulder, like he was resting against the metal part of the seat on a bumpy train._ Did I…_He looked to his shoulder. He could've sworn it'd been jostled…but it couldn't have, it was nestled in the comfortable seat of the Entry Plug.

But the Evangelion had been jostled.

_The synchronization process literally links your central nervous system with that of another,_ he remembered Dr. Akagi saying after one of the early sync tests. That was the fulcrum of the whole process. The fact that the Children _could_ do that (without their psyches folding in upon themselves, or their neurons quite literally exploding) was what made them special, what made them Evangelion pilots.

But he'd never thought...how far did it go? How much would he feel it when he fought? When the Evangelion got hurt...would he get hurt like it was? A cold sweat broke out on his brow, one he felt even in the LCL, and he shut his eyes tight.

_No. I chose this! I can't—_

A blue droplet of light fell into a still pond of darkness, making ripples. Shinji blinked his eyes open wide and took a deep breath…just LCL.

_I must've imagined it._

But for a moment—a fleeting, fleeting moment—he'd smelled his mother's old perfume.

* * *

"Ikari?"

Gendou's eyes blinked back open over the bridge of his hands. "I'm fine, Fuyutsuki."

The old man regarded him curiously, but shrugged at last, returning his gaze to the vast primary viewscreen, whose displays were divided into Sachiel, and his assorted scans and energy readouts as he industriously expanded his newly-made and rapidly expanding hole/tunnel down in the ground of Tokyo-3, and Unit-01, currently resting on the K-25 EM catapult launch pad as the doors clicked open in sequence.

White-clad hands clenched so imperceptibly only Fuyutsuki noticed.

_After all this time. Finally._

"Unit-01 has arrived at the terminal hub…K-25 doors are open, signals all green. Launch preparations complete," Ibuki said.

Katsuragi turned to him, her expression unreadable…though the defiance from the cage was still there. _Good. I need that, too, even if it should be better leashed._

"…I have your approval, of course?"

"Absolutely."

There was a pause before she spoke again. "…Sir, are you _sure_ Shinji-kun can do this?"

"We have to have faith in him, Lieutenant Colonel." He paused to let the barb sink in, watched her nostrils flare just slightly. "After all, unless we defeat the Angels, mankind has no future."

Grey eyes met hazel, won without even trying. _Predictable, Katsuragi. Don't worry. Everything will go as planned..._

"We're going to close tac-net visual connection," Ritsuko called. "Anything you want to say to the pilot before we go to Sound Only, Commander?"

"Patch him in," Gendou ordered. His son's face appeared on his desk screen.

"..Father?"

"Shinji…" The elder Ikari grinned openly beneath the mask of his hands. "Good hunting."

"_LAUNCH!"_ Katsuragi shouted, and Catapult K-25 did just that, the Evangelion Test-Type riding a wave of lightning and electromagnetic fanfare towards Tokyo-3 and destiny.

* * *

**Central Hakone District, Tokyo-3 Metropolitan Area**

Sachiel blinked as he felt the ground rumble, turned from his search for weak spots in the shell of the _Egg_—he knew that some of his Engine's blasts had made it through, but expanding the holes he'd created was proving difficult. He moved with a ponderous step towards the source of the sound; what were the Other's brood doing now? Did they intend to send another bright-weapon? He let the Light of His Soul flicker in contempt of the concept. They had been lucky—surprised him. They would not be so again.

As he took another step, far before him, a Lilim-generated aperture opened up like a mouth, and with a rush of steam, sound and fury, rails shot out of the earth, a shadow-apparatus raised itself up clear of the ground, a great construct of base metals and crude polymers, bearing—_what was that?_ What _was_ that? How could such a thing _be_? Its very existence made Sachiel recoil.

Lilim were dappling specks, small undimensioned and undetailed black things against the burning light of the realities Beyond that the Adami saw; they were ugly things, small things. But this—this was ugly in a way that was utterly unnatural. It was a crime that it existed at all.

Lurking beneath the crude artifice of its armor was a black thing, raw as the shadow of the open Void. It scarred the Pleroma by _existing_. Had the Lilim made this? How could even they, confined beings that they were, not know horror such as this when they saw it? Sachiel's gills flared in outrage.

_**Abomination of abominations**_

They had inverted one of the Progenitors. Stolen the flesh of a god and warped it, moulded it until it became this evil and hungering thing that gnawed at the edges of what was right. He supposed it was only a relief that the stolen flesh was not that of Father, that He had not been defiled by such an evil rite.

Still, how monstrous _were_ the Other's brood? To make a hateful thing such as this out of the flesh of their own Mother?

_**Shadow of Other, you should not be**_

Light burned within Sachiel's eyes till it set the veins of his mask to glowing brimstone red, and he let out an ululating vocalization of his challenge from the flaps of his gilled legs. If he must destroy this horror to reach Father and unity, then so be it.

_**I shall end you, in Father's glorious name**_

_**

* * *

**_

Shinji shook his head against the disorientation as the Test-Type finally ended its catapult ride. Dimly, he heard someone shout "release final safety locks!"

Something unhitched from the Eva's shoulders. He felt himself—no, it—slump forward. He was free.

Experimentally, he lifted his arms, curled his fingers, tried to concentrate on the sensation. To his amazement, the Evangelion did likewise—he could see the massive cyborg's hands curl outside! He could make it move!

"Very good, Shinji-kun. Try walking," Ritsuko chirped from the SOUND ONLY readout.

"R-Roger!" The Ikari boy closed his eyes, gripped the butterfly controls. Imagined taking a step—tentative, careful.

There was the crash of car windows being destroyed and pavement dying from the impact as Unit-01 took its first step forwards. _I can walk_! Shinji thought giddily. _I can make the Evangelion walk!_ He stepped again, and again, as natural as if it were his own feet, towards—where was the Angel?

As if in answer, Sachiel loomed over him. Shinji backpedaled, gasping.

_Okay. Okay. Remember Misato-sensei's lessons-evasive manuevers. I have to get in close, to fight…!_

He tried to move to the side, go into a roll...but he was too fast. A huge foot tangled in the umbilical cable. _Shit! I'm going to fall!_

Desperately he put his hands out, rolled slightly as he felt the Evangelion impact with the street—his face impact with the street, he had to be bleeding—_no_! Focus!

"Shinji! Look out! It's right on top of you!" In terror, he stared up…and a tridactyl hand enveloped the Evangelion's head.

Sachiel loomed massive in front of his face, a Studio Ghibli nightmare. The monster's hollow eyes stared into him, it seemed. Another claw clamped around his wrist as he stared, whimpering, not comprehending.

"Shinji! Shinji-kun, get out of there! Fight back!" Misato cried.

To his credit, the boy struggled. Sachiel's mask seemed almost to smile. Then its muscles expanded, and the hands _wrenched._

Pain exploded in his arm/the Evangelion's arm/oh _God_ oh _Buddha_ oh _Jesus,_ **no**

He could see the veins beneath his skin, knew they couldn't hold, and screamed, a wild sound of inhuman agony.

"Shinji-kun! Calm down! Try to dissociate! That's not your arm! It's the Eva's, not yours!"

But he could _feel _it. His arm was being torn out of its socket, he could _feel_ it being torn out, his shoulder wrenching, his wrist starting to crack and crumple under the sheer strain of the horrible claw squeezing his forearm like the Devil's own vise.

"Why isn't the armor solidifying? Where the _hell_ is the AT Field?"

"It's not deploying! The sync ratios are spiking too wildly for it to establish!"

_Crack_.

His left arm was gone. It was _gone_. How was it still there when he looked at it? He/Eva/he/Eva had lost it, he could feel it hanging by tendons and scraps of meat, a broken, ruined tool. His screams redoubled, though the Eva stood mute.

"Left arm heavily damaged! Circuits going offline!"

Sachiel was unmoved. He hoisted his prey skyward, still holding it by the head, and his palm burned with eldritch light.

"_Shinji-kun, get out of there!_"

A millisecond after, before he could've acted, the lance impacted with the head of Evangelion Unit-01. And again. And again. Each time was like a freight train. Each time was a hundred thousand fists. Trained soldiers would've broken—Ikari Shinji folded utterly, sobbed, flailed. It did no good. His grasping at his burning eye and the weak movements of the Eva were utterly ineffectual. The lance of evil, burning violet smashed clean through his head, sent him sailing back into a wall.

_It's pierced my/our brain, oh God, oh God, I have brain damage, I can't, I can't, someone help me,_

_Doctor_

_Sensei_

_Father_

_Father **help me**_

_father_

_mother_

**_help_**

Blood sprayed in a torrent from fractured cranial arteries, and Ikari Shinji was gone, swept away in its red, violent tide.

* * *

"EMERGENCY" hexagons bloomed into scarlet honeycomb life all over the screens as Misato felt her entire body go numb. "Status!" she demanded.

_No_. _No, no, no, no, no, Shinji-kun, __**no!**_ Rage and sorrow nearly ripped themselves out of her throat in a scream. She locked herself down, enforced a lifetime's worth of military calm. _That fucker can't have him. You hear me, you Angel son of a bitch, you can't have him, you can't, I get to have at least Shinji-kun left to me. You can't just keep taking people from me like this, you alien fucks, it isn't fair!_

"Synchro graph is inverting! Pulse entering flux!" The helixes broke apart, scattered on Ibuki's display.

Ritsuko flung her tablet aside in anger. "God _damn_it! Cut off the circuits, all of them! Break the flow!"

"It's no good!" Ibuki shrieked helplessly. "I can't get a response! The system's going crazy-we're losing neurons and connectivity all across the board! Everything's being refused!"

"Pilot Ikari's vital signs are off-monitor!" Makoto cried out, trying helplessly to enter commands directly through the MAGI. "Unit-01 is silent! I can't raise life signs!"

She saw even Gendou start, saw the Commander himself look as though, perhaps, things weren't going to plan._** Fuck**__ this. _"Abort the operation!" Misato snarled. "Pilot rescue is _first fucking priority_! Eject that entry plug and get him _out_ of there!"

"I'm trying! It's not accepting the signal—the array won't even move! He's trapped inside!"

"What…?"

She hadn't felt this way since Kaji had said four words to her all those years prior. Her stomach had dropped out of her. It had to have, because it wasn't there anymore. Her knees buckled.

_I said I'd take care of him, I said I'd take care of him, I said I'd take care of him_

Her hand dug the silver of the cross in her right hand into the flesh so hard it drew blood.

"Come on," she swore she heard the Commander's voice hiss.

_Hail Mary, full of grace, the Lord is with thee, blessed art—_

"Wh-what? Unit-01…It just reactivated! Repeat, it's getting back up!"

At those words, Fuyutsuki smiled once more, and looked to the bearded man beside him, who had visibly relaxed, light flickering off his glasses as he settled himself back into his hand-bridged position.

"Ah. Well, then. We've won."

* * *

In the moments after Shinji lost consciousness, several things happened.

First of all, the Entry Plug stopped sending signals into the Evangelion's neural network, so it was no longer suborned to the Pilot's will. However, the shutdown plug, which blocked any signals, was not there. Though supposedly silent, Unit-01 was anything but.

Second of all, the other consciousness, that consciousness that Shinji had just barely touched when the droplet of light hit the shadows in his mind, woke up completely, and became aware of what was going on around it. Namely, the Fourth Angel standing over it, drawing back its hand as it studied the foe it had so handily implanted into the surface of a skyscraper.

Third, Evangelion Unit-01's remaining good eye burned incandescent white. Its head snapped up. The lower jaw quivered, struggled, and _came loose_, mechanoid teeth revealing a line of fused red flesh that burst open in a shower of blood. Similarly blood-red teeth, a predator's lethal, cutting teeth, gleamed sharply behind their now-comical metal counterparts.

_She_—for that was, in truth, what the Evangelion was—shoved the Angel back, stood up, and _roared_ in utter defiance of her enemy.

**YOU.**

**ANGEL.**

**ENEMY.**

**YOU WILL **_**NOT **_**TOUCH HIM.**

**

* * *

**

There exists, in the Evangelion Units, a disturbing capacity for violence, beyond even the usual norm of what one would expect from, well, living Gods of flesh and war bound in metal plate. It is one of the reasons that fielding them without the Children who pilot them would be, perhaps, more unconscionable even than what amounts to child soldiery.

When an Evangelion Unit acts without a human will influencing it, it is capable of incredible physical feats. Unfortunately, these come at the cost of the pilot's enforced combat behavior. The Eva becomes a beast, with a singular focus—the utter destruction of whatever it deems an enemy.

The term bandied about in scientific circles for this is "super-id displacement enforcement." Which is a fine blend of useless technobabble that really tells one nothing about the consequences of such a modus becoming active in a xeno-cyborg war machine the size of skyscrapers. In lieu of this fact, the rank and file of NERV have their own term for this phenomenon, one much more succinct and chilling in its accuracy.

The times this has occurred, and they are mercifully few and far between, are called _berserker events._

One such event had just begun.

_

* * *

_

With an unearthly howl, Evangelion Unit-01 leapt into the air, after the clearly startled Sachiel, flipping head over heels as she came to impact with the Fourth's chest, toes first, grappling for the Angel's ribcage.

At first, he who'd come from Beyond tried to use his arms to crush the Shadow's waist. Quickly, he found this ineffectual, and settled for driving her off of him, to complete her leap. With preternatural speed, however, she whirled, rounding on him, and ran forward, another howl breaking from her lungs.

_**Impossible! Horrible! No, no, no**_

Sachiel flared the Light of His Soul in panicked terror, as bright as he possibly could. Iridescent, concentric octagons of pure light bloomed into life, making a wall before the mad, screaming Evangelion Test-Type as the Fourth Angel shrank back in horror, its hands raised.

_**What are you, what are you, vile Shadow, this is not the untried warrior I faced!**_

Unit-01 leered. Brought up her useless, blood-dripping arm, and _concentrated._ Flesh bubbled, rippled, _flowed_ as surely as Sachiel's own—the armor, too, regenerated to shining life, forming last over the Eva's forearm as she finished.

She proceeded to hook her claws into the middle hexagon of the AT Field. Flared her own.

_**What are you**_

And began _pulling_.

Usual AT Field neutralization takes about thirty seconds once the Fields merge. Evangelion Unit-01 did not wait thirty seconds. As her Light met Sachiel's, she _tore his apart_.

**I AM SHE WHO WILL END **_**YOU.**_

Gibbering in terror, no coherent thoughts inside his brain, the Angel let loose all the power of his Engine in one single flare, hoping to burn away the horrible black figure before him, the all-consuming Shadow. Pale violet fire seared the face of Tokyo-3 in a cross of death.

Eva-01 merely snarled, ignoring the burning and melting of her armor, ignoring the injuries to her skin. She pushed through, and grabbed Sachiel's arms. Pulled them both in opposite directions, and _twisted_. Snaps and cracks resounded through the empty streets, as did the Angel's horrible wail of pain. Lifting her leg, the Evangelion kicked into the core of the monster, flinging Sachiel back through a block of empty low-income apartments, sent him helplessly sprawling, unable to bring any weapons to bear. Not that she gave him a chance—she leapt onto the Angel, and using both hands, she tore out his own rib with almost casual violence, ignoring the gout of blood that poured onto her as she howled again, smashing it down into her enemy.

She stabbed into him with his own sharp bone, over and over again, piercing into his Core. This was too much. Something within the Angel snapped—either through determined anger, or simply a death instinct, Sachiel's boneless arms wriggled, formed desperate musculature, and pulled his form taut around Evangelion Unit-01's upper torso.

_**Father! Father! I rejoin, I end, I suffer! For You only! Hear me, Father!**_

With one last act of will, Sachiel warped and shifted his flesh into a veridian sphere, perfecting himself about the Other's Shadow that had all but murdered him. His Core died as a sun dies, exploding into brilliance and broken fragments. The hundred quantum states of the Angel fragmented as the Light of His Soul burned out and became nothingness. His body became rippling kelp-color, then a cascade of inchoate blood.

As the blood of the Fourth Angel hit the base air, his Engine made one last rebellion, and what was left of his corpus, the vast majority of his bloody end, exploded upwards, into one single, final cross of fire, a brilliant rainbow arcing gently over its arms as he met the true death, the final End, and passed from the Pleroma.

Sachiel had fallen. Earth was still. Humanity lived to see another day.

* * *

Within Central Dogma, all talk had ceased as the assembled NERV staff stared at the blinding light filling every screen. As light gave way to fire and smoke, Misato found her voice first.

"What…What is Unit-01's status?"

As if in answer, an unmistakable shape trudged forward, out of the smoke, shoulder pylons steaming in a sudden onslaught of rain. Its fingers flexed. All assembled could see that something—_something_ was missing from atop its head.

Three-lobed, burning green eyes stared out through the darkness, glowing with inner light.

"Is that…?" Misato managed.

"Y-yes. That's…the Evangelion's…true face…" Ritsuko stammered, her skin ashen. "My God, sh—_it_ removed its own helmet…"

Only Gendou seemed unaffected, but the crook of his mouth showed the Commander to be smirking.

With bated breath, the NERV staff watched as the giant bent down, as if squatting. Gently, she reached an arm around. Tugged out the umbilical cable, and tossed it aside, then tapped her spinal column.

The array opened, and the Eva's head sagged—a yawn broke from her mouth. Slowly, the Entry Plug rose wetly from her back.

**SLEEP WELL, CHILD. YOU ARE SAFE, NOW.**

The actinic light died, its eyes shut, and at long last, Unit-01 went completely silent.

**((TO BE CONTINUED))**

**

* * *

**

_**Fly me to the moon,**_

_**And let me play among the stars…**_

**AUTHOR'S NOTES**

Well that was a doozy, wasn't it?

Shinji, Misato, and Gendou's interplay is really interesting to me—poor Ikari Jr. is essentially caught in a tug-of-war between the teacher/mother figure who raised him for nearly eight years, and the absent father that in this timeline, it should be painfully obvious he's come to _idolize_. So…that should be interesting!

**APOCRYPHA:**

_-_A slight adjustment for the Children—a one-year age bump from canon for them each. Shinji is 15, Rei is 15 (?), and Asuka is 14.

**NEXT TIME:**

Shinji copes with trauma! Gendou watches Tokyo-3 rise—_from outside of NERV HQ_! Misato gets drunk and hugs Shinji! Pen-Pen eats fish! Ritsuko does Science! _Maya still doesn't know how to computer!_

All this, and a special appearance by Shinji's secret Internet pen pal! Don't miss it!


	3. An Aftermath

_**Like an angel that has no sense of mercy…**_

_**Rise, young man, and become legend.**_

**DISCLAIMER: **Based on the anime series and film tetralogy created by Hideaki Anno. This is a derivative work that may be removed at the discretion of _Evangelion_'s creators any time they wish.

_Neon Genesis Evangelion_, its characters, and all related trademarks, are copyright 1995, GAINAX

_Rebuild of Evangelion,_ its characters, and all related trademarks are copyright 2007, Studio Khara

**NEON GENESIS EVANGELION:**** NEW COVENANT**

Written by: Nagisa Akurei

**Third Chapter: An Aftermath/Stumble forward, fitfully**

"_The beginning of love is to let those we love be perfectly themselves, and not to twist them to fit our own image. Otherwise we love only the reflection of ourselves we find in them."_

_**-Thomas Merton**_

_**

* * *

**_

_The air smelled of new rain and old smoke. Lake water lapped against the shore in small, gentle waves, seeming to shove against the gravelly rocks that made it up. At the remains of the firepit from the previous night, the boy poked listlessly at ash and coal with a long, narrow stick. To his left was his small, blue tent, round and cheerful-looking. Looming to his right was one in the family model, huge and grey-green. The flaps of that tent were open, and its rain cover flapped slightly in a light morning breeze.  
_

_Morning sunlight streamed, bright yellow-white, through arching cedars and gently swaying pines._

_A voice—his father's—broke the still. Leaving the firepit alone, the boy crept in close to the tent's doorway to listen in, cupping a hand to his ear, and glancing furtively inside.  
_

"_Have you decided what you want to call the baby?"_

_A pale thigh—his mother's—shifted inside the tent, naked to the morning. The boy felt an uncomfortable tightness in his groin, as he glimpsed it. His hands clenched and unclenched.  
_

"_If it's a boy, Shinji."_

_The thigh convulsed. Shuddered. His breath became hotter, heavier in his mouth.  
_

"_If it's a girl, then Rei."_

_There was a trickle of blood running out of the front of the tent._

"_Shinji…Rei…"_

_His mother's leg convulsed again. The flow of blood increased._

"_Ayanami…Shinji …" His heart pounding, the boy began to creep around the corner, try and see. "Ikari…Rei…? "_

"_No…"A convulsion. A gasp. A whimper. Blood spraying out, and something flopping wetly. A child's giggle._

"_Ikari Shinji…"_

_His seven-year-old self turned from where he was helping Mommy give birth. His face and hands were covered in blood. But he was grinning wildly. _

"_Ayanami…Rei!"_

_In his hands was a child who did not cry. A child with pure white skin and crimson eyes._

_The boy screamed._

* * *

**NERV Medical Central Campus, Primary Care Wing**

**Zion Base, UN-Nerv Headquarters, the Geo-Front**

**Tokyo-3, Imperial Republic of Japan (NERV Extraterritory)**

**July 22, 2029  
**

Shinji's cry was cut off as he awoke, sweating, turning from side to side as his heart pounded. _No, no, no..._

Monitors. Leads and wires. The soft beeping of an EKG showing his heart rate. A TV, droning ESPN predictions about the World Cup. The unmistakable shape of a hospital bed. He sighed, relaxed, and stared up at the cold, tiled ceiling, with its singular light turned off.

"…This ceiling is unfriendly," he murmured, curling up slightly. His expression became a grimace as he tried to recall how he'd gotten into the hospital in the first place. He remembered the launch, confronting the Angel...Images seemed to flash in front of his eyes—the Angel. Blood. His arm—his _arm_! But then…Eva-01. Anger. A spear of light.

Roaring. More blood. Iridescent octagons of force.

A three-lobed green eye.

And then, something that felt warm, and enveloping, with that same perfume as she'd always worn...his mother's arms. After that came blackness.

The Ikari boy twitched, shivered, his eyes wide, and rolled onto his left side, curling up into a fetal position, his hands clenching and unclenching helplessly, quivering, as he stared in mute horror at the wall._ Is this what it is to be an Evangelion pilot…? _Shinji squeezed his eyes shut, tremors overtaking his slender form.

_I think…I think I made a mistake…_

It is perhaps lucky that, as the young Ikari drifted out of consciousness again, that he did not turn to his right side.

For he would've seen a pair of eyes, the same cranberry color that he'd just dreamed, staring unblinkingly at him from over the railing of the other bed.

* * *

**Fourth Angel Remnant Collection and Disposal Site, Central Sengokubara District, Tokyo-3 Metropolitan Area**

"Is this what always happens after an Angel loses its core, Akagi-senpai?" Maya shuddered as she stared out from the window of their transport plane.

"That's what the research suggests," Ritsuko replied, her fingers tapping at her laptop keyboard. "The matter the Angels are made of is probably hard to keep together as is…it's a combination of factors within their biology that lets them exist at all." She counted off on her fingers. "The Core, the S2 Engine, and the AT Field all work in concert, which allows the extranormal matter to gain stability while maintaining a mulitple-state nature." Her index finger struck the Enter key emphatically.

"And without that, you must get… this," Ibuki murmured, shifting in her seat. "A lake of blood…It's like something out of Hell." She bit her lip. "Of course, that's where the Pope says they're from, so…"

"I never bought that," Ritsuko shrugged. "Besides, they remind me more of that American author—Lovecraft, and his 'Great Old Ones.'"

"If they _are_ like that, I wish the stars would hurry up and go wrong again," Maya said.

The doctor smirked. "Why, Maya, I never took you for much of a science fiction reader."

The younger woman blushed brilliant red. "D-don't tell anyone…It's kind of my secret hobby…And if Aoba-kun knew he'd make fun of me _forever_…"

Ritsuko chuckled. "Your secret is safe with me, kohai."

"_Now arriving at the disposal area, now arriving at the disposal area."_

As Ritsuko folded and stowed her laptop, and the two stood, Maya cocked her head to the side. "Oh yeah! Hey, senpai, how did the full-systems check on Unit-01 go?"

"Everything was fine," Ritsuko replied, zipping up her laptop bag, "except for one thing: the memory recorder when berserker mode was activated."

Maya gasped. "What was on it?"

"Nothing. That's just it. It was completely blank."

"B…but how can that be? The memory recorder is s-supposed to take samples directly from the neural network, even without the pilot…"

"Your guess is as good as mine," Akagi sighed. "Now come on and get your cleansuit on, kohai. It's time to go take a few samples before they burn all this away, and the Reconstruction Commission is antsy as is."

"Yes, yes! Sorry, senpai!" Maya pouted. "Though you'd think they'd be more paitent with, oh, _the defenders of the planet_…"

"Maybe if we were the Children." Ritsuko put a finger to her chin. "Or if we just dressed up in plugsuits…"

Maya blushed crimson at the notion. "_Senpai_!"

* * *

**::LOCATION REDACTED::**

In a room shrouded in complete darkness, save for a single glowing, rectangular table of white marble set in a spotlight, Ikari Gendou sat, hands folded into their usual bridge.

"Men's pride before Kings' thrones," he intoned softly.

Red light traced twelve apples in the darkness. Then twelve rampant snakes twined about them. Twelve triangular masks, each with seven eyes, completed the sigil. And then, with the sound of spirits becoming material, they appeared. Twelve rectangular, black, extremely flat monoliths with a perfect ratio of 1:4:9 emerged, the red writing settling into their surfaces. Numbers burned to crimson life, each with the words "SOUND ONLY" writ large under the sigil and numeral.

The secret masters of humankind convened once more.

"_Above the starry-sky judges God, the way we judged_," the monoliths spoke in chorus, and the meeting began.

"I trust that the Fourth Angel's demise met with your scenario, gentlemen?" Gendou's voice was its usual impassive calm—he could not afford to show weakness, or even emotion. Not in front of these men, those who would be his masters.

"It was sufficient," boomed the voice of the monolith marked 4. "Your son's _potential_ is quite impressive, Ikari, his performance notwithstanding. He truly is the Third Child. MARDUK selected well."

"The cost to repair Evangelion Unit-01 is troubling, however," said the monolith marked 9. "Cleanup of the fortress city is pocket change compared to such expense."

"He will be better prepared for the next encounter," Gendou replied placidly. "The First Child will train with him."

"Excellent, excellent," murmured 3. "Overall, really, the plan is progressing well. You do a commendable job discharging your duties in charge of the Evangelions."

"But that is not your only responsibility, Ikari." The deep, cultured rumble came from the monolith marked 1, silencing the others. "You are long overdue for an update on the Human Instrumentality Project."

"My apologies on that front." Gendou smirked slightly behind his hands, and made a slight gesture. With a soft whirr, a holographic document—_the 27__th__ Interim Report—_ appeared in the air. "I simply wanted to collate the current data on the First Child's integration of the Seed biology up to the current date. I think you'll be pleased with the results."

"He has a salient point," 10 mused."We would be most remiss if the Heir of Lilith was incomplete due to our haste."

"True, true," 3 echoed. "We shall review this document, Ikari. In the meantime, continue her development at the prescribed pace."

"Then you will have the honor of standing beside us when we complete our contract," 2 noted in his arch, highly inflected Japanese.

"The Throne is gracious."

"Now, remember, Ikari," 9 said chidingly, "Shamshel will arrive in a week's time, in accordance with the Scrolls. Make sure that your Children will be ready."

"Of course," Gendou nodded, his expression blasé. "Everything will go according to the scenario."

"Very good," 1's voice held an air of finality. "Then that is everything. This meeting is adjourned."

As quickly as they had come into existence, the monoliths disappeared. Gendou stood, staring off into the darkness for a moment, then silently walked behind him, opened a door that was more a white portal into infinity, and exited.

* * *

**NERV Medical Central Campus, Primary Care Wing**

**Zion Base, UN-Nerv Headquarters, the Geo-Front**

He awoke once more to a gentle stirring of his shoulder, blinking his eyes slowly open to regard the form of one of the nurses—Yoshino was her name, Shinji remembered dimly. She had a pretty face, green eyes framed by brown hair that sat neatly under her old-fashioned nurse's cap.

"Sorry to wake you, Pilot Ikari," she said, her voice quiet and very low. "But...if you feel like getting up, you have visitors."

Shinji blinked. "That's all right." He sighed, grumbling slightly as he sat up. "I…I guess I should go see them. I don't feel like sleeping more, really."

"Do you feel like you can walk?"

The young Ikari experimentally curled his toes at the question, bent his legs just slightly, one after the other, then looked back up to her, nodding just slightly. "I think so. Um, will I need to take the IV with me?"

"I'm afraid so," she said apologetically. "Don't worry. If all goes well, you'll be discharged today, and we won't be pumping our juices into you anymore." She laughed softly, and Shinji echoed it, nervously.

Before he went to see his visitor, the nurse spoke once again. "Oh, and Pilot Ikari?"

"Y-yes?"

"Thank you for saving everyone, yesterday."

He felt blood rush into his cheeks, and stammered, then nodded mutely as he walked into the hall, towards the lobby, leaning slightly on his IV. The boy almost made it inside the lobby doorway that way. Then there was a blur of purple hair and long, dark, UNCF dress uniform, and his face was being pressed into Misato's chest as her arms wrapped tight around Shinji's body, almost tight enough to hurt when they were pressed into him. Her breath was ragged and gulping against him. Had she slept?

"Well," Dr. Akagi said softly, gently, "look what the cat dragged in." He could see the Doctor through slightly blurry eyes, her white labcoat swirling raiment-like around her, arms folded behind her back, giving her friend and the charge whom Misato was desperately clinging to some space.

"Shinji-kun! Thank God…You really are all right…Th-thank God…"

"I'm fine," he whispered, though he felt his whole body shake against her, his arms twitching.

"No you aren't." A fist clenched, and he was pulled back, shaken by the collar of his hospital clothes. "No you _aren't_." His teacher's voice was thick, and her eyes filled with tears. "You almost died, Shinji-kun! You almost… Why…_why_ did you let him…"

_I've made her cry_… "I'm s-s-sorry…" Shinji's voice cracked, betrayed him. The shape of the Angel loomed in his mind, a shadow of damnation. He flinched, withered. _I..I should've done better. I let her down._

Misato's voice hitched. "…why did _I_ do this to you?…God damn NERV...this fucking war..."

Ritsuko stepped forwards, and gently set a hand on both their shoulders, speaking softly. "He's still here, Misa-chan. And he saved us all."

Misato nodded, her face managing a grimace of a smile.

"…I'm so proud of you, Shinji-kun…"

That was it. The teenager wrapped his arms around Misato's waist and broke emotionally, bawling against her, tears flowing from his eyes, and he couldn't stop them any more than he could stop her from softly crying in return, or gently stroking her fingers through his hair.

Akagi Ritsuko turned her head away, tried to swallow the lump in her throat.

_Old man…You'd better know what you're doing._

* * *

She watched their reunion—Colonel Katsuragi, and Pilot Ikari—from where she sat on the edge of her bed. Red eyes flickered almost imperceptibly as she gazed at them, watched their interaction. Ayanami's brow furrowed, and she turned to the wall of the room, wrenched her gaze away from the two. She opened and closed the hand that was not encased in a cast repeatedly, stared at the palm. Rei had felt _something_, watching them, but it was one more of those things she could not name. The feeling that she knew as frustration flowed in, filled the gap, made her head hurt.

_The way they touch, the way they speak and act—this is what it means for two humans to care for one another._ A sigh escaped her throat, and the otherworldly girl pulled herself back up, onto the bed, staring at the ceiling._ I should know how to react to this. But I do not._ It was one more thing that made her a falsehood.

She narrowed her eyes, stared at the ceiling.

"He was correct," Rei murmured. "This ceiling is…unfriendly."

_Ikari Shinji._ A feeling of...uncertainty. When she concentrated, Rei could feel his arms cradling her again, the sudden warmth of his touch. The feeling of his heartbeat. The pain of her disturbed injuries. The color of his eyes, like clouds, or the surface of the water. The softness of his face. She closed her eyes, called up two images—the boy, and his father_._

_Ikari Gendou._ A feeling of inner warmth and tingling blood filled her at the thought of the Commander. He who understood her, and who knew why she could not understand. Unlike Shinji's, his eyes were grey, no tinges of blue. They made her think of rain. Gendou's face was angular, the softness hidden. And yet...Her hand flexed again, and Rei frowned. She felt she wanted to see the pair of the Commander's glasses that he'd allowed her to keep. That she wanted to hold them. _I wonder if that is really acceptable? Should I become so attached to an object?_

"_You are not human, Rei. But there is nothing that says you cannot learn to be_."

Crimson eyes flickered, called another memory. A shaking hand extended, three years younger.

"_I-i-it's nice to meet you, Ayanami-san…_"

They were alike. She could, in her mind, sculpt Shinji already to the contours of his father's face. But the likeness went beyond physicality; so much seemed kept inside their hearts and minds. Too, they were different. Gendou was purity, calm and placid, utterly at rest. Shinji was turmoil, inconsistence, filled with the need to act yet not knowing how.

_Humans...They have difficulty understanding themselves. In that, at least, I'm not completely unlike them._

"He does not understand," she said to the ceiling. "Is that a point of commonality between us?" She clenched her uninjured hand to her, turned over onto her side, and studied the landscape of the sheets.

"I think...that I want it to be."

* * *

"—I swear, if the damn technicians haven't gotten Pen-Pen's refrigerator hooked up when I _get_ there, I'll—"

The conversation stopped completely when they saw him step out of the elevator—not at all surprising. Gendou carefully adjusted his glasses and jacket, nodding to Katsuragi as she snapped to attention.

"Commander."

"At ease, Colonel." He looked to Ritsuko next, who was blinking slightly in surprise, more flustered than attentive; she clearly hadn't expected him back yet. "Dr. Akagi…Deputy Commander Fuyutsuki is waiting for you in Conference Room _A_."

"Er, understood, sir." Her green eyes arched and narrowed, asked a question without speaking. _It's about the Committee, right?_ "Is it urgent?"

"Extremely so." _And it's not good news._

She nodded briskly, turning and bowing to Shinji and Katsuragi. "Sorry, Misa, Shinji-kun. Duty calls. I'll be over later for the housewarming, though, okay?"

"I'm not saving any dinner for you if you're late, Dr. Akagi," Misato said primly, and the doctor simply chuckled, nodding, then disappeared into the elevator with a swirl of her labcoat. Shinji remained silent, his eyes drifting back and forth between the two remaining adults. Gendou tried to force the knot out of his chest.

_I wish he didn't look so afraid of me._

"Sir…was there anything else you needed?" The Colonel looked to him questioningly, her tone without rancor.

He adjusted his glasses once more. "…Actually, if he'd agree to it, I'd like to spend a little time with Shinji."

She frowned, but nodded, looking to the boy, who nodded almost instantly, his face creasing into a smile.

"I-I'd like that, Father."

Gendou's lips quirked imperceptibly. "Let's go."

* * *

The two Ikaris began their journey in silence, Shinji's eyes darting from side to side as he followed his father, tugging at the white collar of his shirt, conscious of the surreptitious glances and whispers of the NERV staff they passed by. The teen bit his lip slightly, looking up to the seemingly stone face of his father.

_I…I need to say something. It's been three years, and I've waited to see him for so long. I've __**wanted**__ to see him for so long, and now I can't say anything?_

"This place really is huge," he murmured. _Idiot! He knows that!_

"Mm," Gendou nodded. "It's…a unique design, isn't it?"

"Who built it…?" Shinji tried to will his cheeks not to flush, his voice not to crack or choke, wishing this wasn't so hard. _Stupid!_

"Zion Base was originally a military pseudo-arcology design developed by the Americans before Second Impact. It was scrapped after the Wars due to the cost to build, but NERV obtained the blueprints, using them both here and at Golgotha in the U.S.," Gendou said, adjusting his glasses. "The truly interesting part is the Geo-Front itself. We didn't build that."

His son blinked, looking startled. "Then…who…?"

The elder Ikari's lips quirked again, and he shrugged as the personnel carrier they'd been riding deposited them at Car Tram Station B. "No one knows. It's unlikely ancient humans could have done this…perhaps the Angels did, in a bygone era, but we don't know if they existed then, either." He pulled a set of car keys from his pocket, clicked the remote, and a massive black sedan chirped, flashing its lights in greeting, the doors unlocking…dutifully, Shinji went to the passenger's side, Gendou slipping in the driver's.

The car tram hitched and whirred as they began their ascent, and Shinji mentally clawed for something to say, but nothing came. He settled instead for surreptitious glances to his father, whose amber eyeglasses flashed in the passing tunnel lights, giving him an eerie appearance. The young teen sighed softly, and settled back into the comfortable leather of the seat.

In the silence that had fallen anew, pulling out his S-DAT was less a decision than an instinct—one he regretted as he glanced up, finding not the nonjudgmental, maternal gaze of his guardian, but the stern prophet's brow of his father, who was blinking at the small object. Shinji's eyes went wide with panic, like a deer cornered by the hunter. He began to shake. _Oh, no._

"I'm s-sorry! Father! I'll—"

"Shinji," Gendou said, calmingly, "it's all right."

He blinked, shut his mouth, pushed the quaver from his voice. "...oh."

"I'm actually…surprised you kept it. I thought…" Gendou let his voice trail off into a grunt, leaning his chin against a gloved hand. The younger Ikari chewed his lip slightly.

"…well…it, er, it reminded me of both you and Mom. You gave it to me…and, they were her songs."

For the first time in years, Gendou smiled. "They were." He paused, raising a gloved hand to adjust his glasses, and sighed. "…You know, when she made that tape, I told her that she was teaching you to hate actual music."

"…Most of it… isn't very good," Shinji admitted, a small, lopsided smile gracing his features. "I…I kind of like 'Aoi Legend', though. Track 25."

Gendou simply arched an eyebrow…moving a slender, white-gloved finger forwards, the elder Ikari pressed a button on the car's built-in MP3 player. Not five seconds later, the heavily produced instrumentals of Mitsuishi Kotono's "Aoi Legend" filled the black sedan.

And for the first time in seven long years, the father and the son laughed together.

* * *

Neither Fuyutsuki nor Ritsuko were in the Conference Room-it had been a red herring, meant to distract those who watched and listened.

No, the Deputy Commander and the Technical Director met in Akagi's office, under the apocalyptic glow of the MAGI System's near-constant data feed, the red stream of quantum computations from each of the three A.I.s casting an infernal glow about the place. It had originally been bugged—just like most of Zion—but if ever there was a scientist who had the resources and the determination to defend her pride and privacy, it was Akagi Ritsuko. In her childhood, her little space had been all she had, and Akagi had learned to defend it violently.

Fuyutsuki didn't mind. Their cabal needed places to meet as much as the enemy did, and they did not have the luxury of ancient estates or council halls.

Ritsuko settled herself in her chair, lighting a cigarette as she turned to the wintry man, and made a grand gesture to the teapot on her desk. "Tea, Professor?"

"Yes, please. It'll help calm my nerves," the old man sighed. "Damn it. _Damn_ it. Those old bastards are playing us."

"I take it Gendou's meeting with them didn't go as expected."

Kouzou shook his head. "They should have lambasted him across the board, with the damage incurred both to Unit-01 and the pilot, on top of the…_incident_. Instead, we got a love-tap on the wrist and a lofty proclamation about the Third's 'potential'. They might as well have rolled out a banner saying _You're not as smart as you think you are,_ and waved it in our faces."

Ritsuko took a drag and smirked. "Oh, come now. Perhaps they suddenly remembered that as they secretly control the entire world's economy, money really ought to be no object, and decided to spend it on us, instead of teenage hookers and Arthur C. Clarke references." Another drag. "Out of the goodness of their shrivelled old hearts."

"You find a speck of good in Kiel Lorenz's heart, my dear Dr. Akagi, and I will dance the lambada in a fruit hat. While accompanied by Katsuragi's penguin monster thing."

"I think you'd look fetching in a fruit hat, Fuyutsuki-hakase," Ritsuko grinned, pouring the tea she'd promised into a pair of cups, and handing one to Fuyutsuki, who sipped gratefully. After a moment, Ritsuko sighed, taking another long drag on her cigarette. "I'm guessing they finally got their hands on the Report, too?"

"Oh, yes, and they made a big show of '_not rushing the Heir of Lilith's development_,'" The fingers of Fuyutsuki's free hand formed quotations in the air. "Which is another part of why I wanted to talk to you in such a hurry. We need the _real_ figures on Rei."

Ritsuko cracked her knuckles. "Coming right up. Caspar, please open the Ayanami casefile directory—vocal authorization Akagi Ritsuko."

A soft light flashed over Ritsuko's eyes, the unmistakable mark of a retinal scan. After a moment, the icon of a stylized gold coin appeared in the corner of the screen, and a soft, vaguely female synthetic voice replied, not unlike Ritsuko's own.

"_Access granted, Ritsuko-sama. Would you prefer continued assistance, or to look at the files in analog mode_?"

"Analog, please. Thank you, Caspar," the doctor replied, sliding a mouse in front of her and assigning it to the screen before herself and Kouzou with a gesture. The screen coalesced and decrypted, revealing the casefile of the First Child.

"Here we go…hmm, we need to schedule a memory-simulacra check sometime soon, or there's…well, you know," the doctor sighed, scrolling down.

Fuyutsuki's eyes scanned the readout wordlessly for a while, then he nodded.

"…Her body's already adapting."

"Don't worry. The genetic limiters will hold…for now, anyway. Besides, you've seen how she is. She's taken Gendou's lessons about self-control almost too much to heart."

"That's the other thing I worry about," Kouzou nodded, grumbling. "The idea was to teach her about humanity and its value, not have her close herself off…Do you think it's residual trauma? From..." He winced, and cut himself off abruptly, pinching the bridge of his nose. "I'm...I'm sorry, Ritsuko, I didn't mean to—"

"It's not just the trauma; what's still there from back then is bad, but it doesn't account for this severe of a personality disorder," Ritsuko interrupted, shaking her head. "I don't know if it _can_ be explained. In the end, she's just really...alone, isn't she?" Smoke curled from Akagi's mouth in a long plume. "I can't blame her. If I had to figure out how to be human on my own…I doubt I'd be much different."

"Maybe training with Ikari's son will help that. I don't know." Fuyutsuki paused again, looked at her. "I really didn't mean to bring up Naoko..."

"Don't blame yourself, Professor," Ritsuko's green eyes closed momentarily, the screen making her glasses opaque for a moment, closing her off to her compatriot and the world. "What happened then, happened."

"She was still your mother," Fuyutsuki murmured.

"She never wanted to be, Fuyutsuki-hakase." Another cigarette was lit, an angry lidless eye of fire in the darkness. "No sense burdening her with it now."

* * *

**Kintoki Summit Viewpoint**

**Tokyo-3 Metropolitan Area Outskirts**

Shinji carefully shut the car door as he stepped out to join his father at the fence, shading his eyes against the setting sun. Gendou checked his watch, expression imperturbable, glancing over just slightly as the younger Ikari joined him at the summit, staring out over the city and shivering slightly.

"How is it, living with Katsuragi?"

Shinji gave a slightly nervous chuckle, shrugging. "Well…I have to do the housework, most of the time. She's really bad about that. And I usually do the cooking, unless Dr. Akagi is over. So it's different from h—from back then."

Gendou nodded, sighing softly. "It's different for me, too…I left our house in the care of her brother, and most of the things in it." He paused. "…That was part of the reason I didn't invite you to come live with me. All I have is my quarters in the Geo-Front, and while they're large for one person, they'd be cramped for two."

"It's all right," Shinji smiled. "I'm probably too used to Katsuragi-sensei, as it is." There was a pause. "…Even with everything I have to do, she really looks out for me, you know?"

"Then I made the right choice." Gendou's lips quirked again, though a wave of…something…passed his face, and he turned, gesturing, to the lookout. Before Shinji's face could fully manifest any worry, he said, "It's starting."

A siren wailed out across the desolate landscape of the locked-down city, and the young boy felt his spine prickle in awe. He knew this was going to happen—he'd been in fortress cities before, and seen Tokyo-3 in both its Condition Two state and its usual gleaming majesty—but he hadn't actually seen this.

Huge doors ground open, and lock-bolts released—the buildings sprouted small red halos, and then, slowly, they rose. As if a garden in time-lapse, or raised by the hand of God.

First rose the medium-sized skyscrapers, and with them the vital innards of the city—hospitals, police precincts, and the like. The huge pillars of finance, commerce, and industry came next, catching the golden light in soft reflection off their glassy-scaled sides.

Finally, rotating to catch the light, the six vast solar collection plants rose alongside the last two skyscrapers, catching the dying gold of the sun's rays in their embrace. Shinji gaped, blinking._ It's beautiful. I've seen things like it, but…_

"A…amazing…" he managed to murmur.

"I felt you should see it," Gendou said. "This is our home. Our fortress against the Angels, yes, but it's also NERV's city. Mankind's city." His glasses, too, caught the light as he turned to face Shinji. "This is what you protected." His fingers adjusted his glasses again.

"...Father..." He shook his head. "I..."

"No one could've asked you to do better than you did," Gendou replied, as if he knew. "You were very brave, Shinji. You should be proud."

A wordless Shinji stepped closer, and they let the sun set a little more before they left to part ways.

* * *

It was late enough when he arrived that Misato had already begun unpacking, which meant that the usual arrival mess was already in the process of being strewn about the floor of 'M. Katsuragi', as the doorplate read. Shinji gingerly kicked a pair of socks out of the way as he slipped out of his shoes...while he'd never admit it to Misato-sensei, he was glad to see the mess again. Deeply, he sucked in several breaths, closed his eyes, calmed himself.

_Father...I'm sorry. I'm so nervous around you..._

"I'm home!" he called.

"Welcome back, slowpoke!" Misato sang from the kitchen. "I hope you ate, because I fed Ricchan your portion!"

"She did _not_," the Doctor corrected from somewhat further off. "Don't be mean, Misato, he's been through a lot today."

The Ikari boy stepped around a newly opened-box of clothes to poke his head into the common area, taking a deep sniff and wrinkling his nose. "What're we having?"

His guardian was already in her customary yellow tank-top and jean shorts that she'd termed her "relaxation clothing", sprawled in her chair, chugging down a Yebisu in her familiar fashion. Ritsuko, beside her in her usual work clothes (sans labcoat), gestured to the forest of pseudo-styrofoam containers, cardboard dessert boxes, bottles of green tea and Coke, and golden Yebisu cans that sat on the table with her chopsticks.

"She couldn't wheedle me into cooking, and we got hungry, so we ordered in Thai and some cream puffs from Beard Papa's. She ate most of the green tea flavor, though."

"Hey, I worked hard today, too," Misato grumbled. "I'm a full Colonel now, to boot, even though they've rescheduled the promotion ceremony four weeks."

"Yes, yes, congratulations," Shinji deadpanned, sliding into his seat, rummaging through the containers. "Did you get the _phat si-lo_ beef and leave it alone, at least?"

The Colonel chuckled, opening a container and handing it to him. "And as spicy as the conquering hero likes it."

Shinji blushed. "I…Y-you…Don't call me that, sensei, geez…" He made a face, snatching the food and some chopsticks. "_Thank_ you," he growled, to Misato's cackling laughter and Ritsuko's polite chuckle, and with a quick "_ittadakimasu_", began to wolf down the food, his starving limbs nearly trembling as the mix of flavors hit them.

"She still knows your weak points," Ritsuko murmured, grinning. "It's why she's such a dangerous woman, isn't it, Shinji-kun? She really does have a tactical mind under that slovenly exterior."

"I'll sa—YAHHH!"

"_Wark_," Pen-Pen pronounced in either agreement or a bid for some of the beef, his green eyes and yellow beak emerging from under the table…which had lead to Shinji yelping, and spilling sauce into his lap. "Wark! Wark!"

"Misato!" Shinji flailed, trying to get the penguin away from him as Pen-Pen attempted to claw up the boy's slacks and into his lap. "Help me!"

"Warkwarkwarkwarkwark!"

"Ah," Misato grinned, looking to Ritsuko, "domestic bliss."

"No! No, don't try and eat my shirt! Get off!"

"Wark! Waaaaark warkwarkwark wark wark!"

"Well, you know our motto," Ritsuko said demurely. "_God's in His Heaven…"_

"_All's right with the World_," Misato finished. The two women raised their beers and clinked them together even as Pen-Pen and Shinji crashed to the floor.

* * *

||22:45 – Sunday, July 22, 2029||

[22:45] 熱烈真紅: YOU

[22:45] 熱烈真紅: where the _hell_ have you been? what the fuck _happened_?

[22:46] チェロ見習い: I'm sorry! It turned out to be a lot…more involved…

[22:46] 熱烈真紅: I AM GOING TO BEAT YOU WITH A BROOM

[22:47] チェロ見習い: Please don't. ;_;

[22:47] チェロ見習い: We really were just supposed to go to the new apartment! But then…

[22:47] チェロ見習い: There was an Angel…

[22:48] 熱烈真紅: T_T

[22:48] 熱烈真紅: NO SHIT

[22:48] 熱烈真紅: WE GET THE NEWS OVER HERE, TOO

[22:49] 熱烈真紅: I WAS FUCKING _WORRIED_

[22:49] 熱烈真紅: I mean the last thing I hear from you is "be right back, we're going to the ceremony," and then I turn on the news and _oh look, the Fourth Angel is in Tokyo-3_

[22:49] 熱烈真紅: I called you for an hour trying to make sure you were okay

[22:49] チェロ見習い: You did?

[22:50] チェロ見習い: Crap, that means my phone really was damaged in the crash…I hope they'll give me a new one…

[22:50] 熱烈真紅: WHAT CRASH?

[22:50] チェロ見習い: Please calm down!

[22:51] チェロ見習い: We were going to the Geo-Front, right, and the Angel got close. Too close for the JSSDF. Sooo they set off an N2. And Sensei's car got flipped over.

[22:51] 熱烈真紅: !

[22:51] チェロ見習い: We got to the Geo-Front okay after that though!

[22:51] 熱烈真紅: …

[22:51] 熱烈真紅: okay

[22:51] 熱烈真紅: you exist in linear time, I am assuming

[22:52] 熱烈真紅: so you had damn well better

[22:52] 熱烈真紅: make sure that the next words you type

[22:52] 熱烈真紅: are a succinct explanation

[22:52] 熱烈真紅: of why, after arriving, you did not call _your oldest god damn friend_

[22:52] 熱烈真紅: for a _GOD DAMN WEEK_

[22:53] 熱烈真紅: or I am buying a plane ticket there

[22:53] 熱烈真紅: and I am going to actually physically harm you until you cannot move anymore, Ikari Shinji

[22:55] チェロ見習い: …Succinct, huh?

[22:55] チェロ見習い: Fine. Look. I piloted it.

[22:55] チェロ見習い: I am not joking. I actually piloted an Evangelion. Okay? Which is why I couldn't fucking come online! Because I got in the giant cyborg and _fought_ the monster!

[22:59] チェロ見習い: …You don't believe me, do you? -_-

[23:00] 熱烈真紅: I believe you

[23:00] チェロ見習い: Good, because it's true. I'm the Third Child, savior of the world and everything.

[23:00] チェロ見習い: Everyone's depending on you, Shinji, so naturally in your first battle you try to utilize your training and completely screw up royally and _fall over_ like an _idiot. -___-;

[23:00] チェロ見習い: Do you know what I apparently just didn't get, when I was training?

[23:01] チェロ見習い: You feel _all the pain_ those things feel! All of it! I…The Angel put a spear _through my head_!

[23:02] 熱烈真紅: that's a byproduct of the neural synchronization

[23:02] 熱烈真紅: it's the same reason you can make the evangelion move, but the pain is there to tell you you're doing something wrong

[23:02] 熱烈真紅: or that you're being hurt or damaged

[23:02] 熱烈真紅: did you get sympathetic injuries?

[23:03] チェロ見習い: I don't care _why_ it's happening! It shouldn't! I felt like I was going to die!

[23:03] チェロ見習い: No. I don't even know what those are. Can you actually get hurt in those things?

[23:05] 熱烈真紅: yes, if your sync ratio is high enough

[23:05] 熱烈真紅: at 70 and above they start showing up when the eva gets hurt

[23:05] 熱烈真紅: usually they don't happen unless there's a sync spike

[23:05] 熱烈真紅: during a really heated battle or something

[23:10] チェロ見習い: Great. Amazing. Wonderful.

[23:10] チェロ見習い: -_-;;;

[23:10] チェロ見習い: I need…I need to go lay down. I'm sorry I didn't call you. I'm a horrible friend, and an idiot, and fucking everything. I'll be on later. I don't start school till Wednesday.

[23:11] 熱烈真紅: shinji wait

||23:11 : チェロ見習い Disconnected||

[23:11] 熱烈真紅: I'm sorry for yelling at you

[23:19] 熱烈真紅: well now I'm not T_T

[23:24] 熱烈真紅: fine, be that way

[23:24] 熱烈真紅: asshole

[23:24] 熱烈真紅: idiot

[23:24] 熱烈真紅: jerkoff

||23:30 : 熱烈真紅 Disconnected||

* * *

Misato paused at the entrance of "Shin-chan's Room", marked on its old wooden heart, and knocked lightly. She blinked, shook her head, tried to clear the Yebisu from her senses. Yes, she should have stopped at six. Ritsuko would've stopped her, but she'd gone _home_. Stupid Ricchan, going _home_.

"Shinji-kun? Youuuu…okay? I heard you slam th' laptop." She staggered slightly, cursing the slur in her voice.

"…We just…we had a fight, kind of," came the boy's muffled tone. "I disconnected on her."

"Oh noooooo." Her heart sank, twisted. Then her stomach did.

"Don't worry. It was stupid. I shouldn't have snapped." A sigh. "I'll apologize tomorrow."

"Gr…gr…_good_. Yes. Okay. Bu-but you know, looooots of people fight. I mean…I mean. I'm _sorry_. I'm _drunk_, Shinji-kun."

"…I know, Misato-sensei. C…Could you come in anyway?"

She managed to push open the door, stumble over to the bed, thanking God it was raised—the Ikari boy liked Western beds, and she'd indulged. He was curled up on top of it, almost fetal, knees pulled to his elbows, staring at his S-DAT. "Aoi Legend" was drifting dimly out of the earbuds, she could tell.

She'd tried listening to the old tape once, and had nearly burst out laughing, then felt awful. _Those are his mother's songs, you tramp. His _real_ mother's_.

He turned to her, eyes more like storms than ever.

"…Misato-sensei…the Eva. I'm going to have to pilot it again, aren't I?"

She bit her lip, and nodded.

"…I don't want to, anymore," he said in a very small voice. "I…I'm glad it makes people proud of me. It…it even made Father proud of me, didn't it?"

"It's not…the only—" She fumbled for words, shook her head, and just listened.

"I know…I…And I _want_ to save people. I feel…I feel so _stupid_. I should want to pilot it, and, and I _have_ to. But…But after what happened…After feeling all that, and seeing that _thing_, and you crying, and how much it hurt and…"

His voice cracked, and tears flowed from his eyes. "I'm scared, Misato-sensei…I'm so _scared_…"

"Oh, Shinji-kun…" Her heart broke, like the hospital all over again, as she took him into her arms, and felt him begin to sob softly. "Shhh. Shhhhhh." Her fingers ran through his hair. "I'll protect you."

And as he finished sobbing, weariness claimed his eyes, intoxication claimed hers, and they fell asleep beside each other as the sun rose over Tokyo-3.

**(to be continued)**

**

* * *

**

_**Fly me to the moon,**_

_**And let me play among the stars…**_

**AUTHOR'S NOTES:**

Here's a nice denouement. We get to see a little behind the scenes, and I get to flesh out some things, which is fun. I hope you guys enjoyed it too, and that the interplay between the characters isn't too hackneyed. I think I've got Gendou at the point I want him…he loves his son, but there's distance there, and he's conscious of it. He's engineered it, in fact—there's both love and manipulation in the elder Ikari. As for Shinji...well, I have loads of fun portraying Shinji.

I hope no one is too put off by the fact that he failed spectacularly as per usual in Chapter 2. I'm of the opinion that a Shinji who finds his footing quickly and does the impossible, the hot-blooded Shinji, is kind of a betrayal of the whole character. Shinji isn't other mech pilots—that's the _point_. He's a fifteen-year-old boy who's being asked to save the planet repeatedly—he _should_ be terrified. He _should_ screw up. Hot-bloodedness is left for the shows that ought to be deconstructed by Eva.

I'm going to try and put more segments devoted to Rei in next chapter…we're starting the Rei, Beyond her Heart arc early, I think. I love Ayanami to death—she was the one who got me into Eva—but writing her is _really_ challenging, because she's inhuman, on the outside of humankind looking in.

Finally, before I trail on too long, I hope everyone enjoyed Shinji's IM conversation with his friend—I fucking _loved_ writing that—and I welcome guesses as to the identity of that friend—no hints, cause you shouldn't need any to get it. But there may be a prize. Perhaps cake. Also knowledge of what the screennames mean/actually are, then.

Until next time, please review and shit, and enjoy yourselves. Thank you much!

* * *

**Next time:** Who is this mysterious tracksuited boy trying to punch Shinji in the face? Why, it's Suzuhara Touji! Who are these mysterious suited men holding him back? Why, it's Section-2 of NERV! Who is this mysterious alb—that's Rei, how do you not know that? In Unit-00! And they're going to show up! Together, even! Plus plenty of _service, service_! (…Okay, not really.)

Don't miss it!


	4. Every little Tragedy

_**Like an angel that has no sense of mercy…**_

_** Rise, young man, and become legend.**_

**DISCLAIMER: **Based on the anime series and film tetralogy created by Hideaki Anno. This is a derivative work that may be removed at the discretion of _Evangelion_'s creators any time they wish.

_Neon Genesis Evangelion_, its characters, and all related trademarks, are copyright 1995, GAINAX

_Rebuild of Evangelion,_ its characters, and all related trademarks are copyright 2007, Studio Khara

**NEON GENESIS EVANGELION: ****NEW COVENANT**

Written by: Nagisa Akurei

**Fourth Chapter: Every little Tragedy**

"_In war, there are no unwounded soldiers."_

_**-Jose Narosky**_

**Apartment 402, Seiza Apartment Complex, Nagaotege**

**Tokyo-3, Hanagawa Prefecture, Imperial Republic of Japan (NERV Extraterritory)**

**July 23, 2029**

The term "morning ritual" is an imprecise colloquialism; usually, it refers to a sequence of repeated events undertaken upon waking, in order to be ready for the day ahead.

With more driven individuals, it can be a behavior they purposely introduce into their routine in order to gain a perceived benefit.

For Ayanami Rei, the term could be applied somewhat differently, in the sense that the First Child's morning was just that—a ritual. Her movements were precise, carefully planned, a sequence of events meticulously crafted to mimic her ideal. She was not certain at what point this particular iteration of the ritual had developed. It was likely that it had just after she began living in 402.

First, she awoke—removing herself from the bed, she carefully replaced and straightened the bedding, adjusted her pillow, and traveled to the bathroom. Seating herself on the closed toilet, she carefully removed the bloodstained dressings on her legs, studied the healing injuries with a critical red eye; they were closing up, which was good. Carefully, she folded the dressings up, and placed them in the wastebasket, then retrieved fresh dressings from the cupboard. She did this for each remaining set of bandages, wincing only when she removed the stomach wrapping—that wound still remembered Pilot Ikari from the previous day, and had been a difficulty even before that. At least her arm had finally been removed from its cast after Pilot Ikari's discharge, and she had at last been allowed to return here by the Commander. While time in the hospital was a necessity, it disrupted the flow of events, disrupted her purpose.

Pulling herself up, she set the shower to its second highest heat setting before turning it on and stepping inside. Rei gave a small gasp, felt her muscles relax and tingle…she liked the water in general, and here she enjoyed the feel of the hot water on her skin, the contrast of its heat with the cool environment.

After washing, she stepped out, pulled the towel, dried herself off meticulously, and removed the brush from its place in the cabinet. Precisely fifteen times—she counted—the Ayanami girl moved the bristles through her periwinkle hair, carefully framing her face. Once it was perfect, she nodded, unspeaking, and removed toothbrush, toothpaste, and floss, cleaned her teeth, and examined them as best she could using the bathroom mirror.

Now for the most important part—the necessity—once she stored the tooth-cleaning materiel. A small white bag, reading "R. AYANAMI" in block-letter English, was removed from its place on the lowest shelf, and the orange pill bottle retrieved from inside it. Opening it, she doled out two pills, red-and-white, then closed the bottle and put it away. Taking the glass that rested by the sink in her other hand, she filled it with water, put the pills into her mouth, and gulped the water down, swallowing them easily.

Once she'd done that, she examined herself, both with her piercing cranberry-colored eyes and her hands. No unusual marks (besides her injuries), no growths, nothing to suggest she was not human save the alabaster cast of her skin and a few biological oddities that simply could not be helped. Her pubescent stage progressed ideally. Rei nodded again, and redressed her injuries before proceeding out of the bathroom to her closet, sliding it soundlessly open, and retrieving first underclothes, then a school uniform.

Underwear first. Then bra. Then starched white shirt. Then skirt and vest, tightening the belt just so, though her stomach injury made her wince again. Then black socks, pulled to just the right height. Last of all the red tie—the only part she disliked. She frowned as she set the bow in place—Ayanami had always disliked the color red. She wasn't sure why, especially—

_Hands around her neck, no breath, no breath, red flooding her vision_

Rei shook her head, closing her eyes tightly. No, she would not remember that, nor anything to do with that. Indeed, she would report that to Dr. Akagi, so it could be taken care of. She shook her head, and walked into the kitchen.

It is worth noting that Apartment 402 was, now that Ayanami Rei lived there, the cleanest it had ever been. The floor, both linoleum and carpet, was spotless. The walls were so untouched they faintly shone. Her curtains were drawn for privacy, shading everything, with the additional side effect of adding extra cooling to the already air-conditioned apartment. Rei appreciated this. She did not like warm weather.

All of her possessions—which were very, very few, mostly books, her laptop computer, and a glasses case containing the one item she valued most in the world—were organized and set in their places, _just_ in their places, in and on her desk. No clothing was out of its proper place in the laundry basket or in her closet—no dishes were left undone in the sink.

One might draw the conclusion, as they watched Rei prepare her morning repast of miso soup, bok choi, and rice with only a very little topping, that the otherworldly girl suffered from obsessive-compulsive disorder; she certainly exhibited plenty of the symptoms. This being untrue, they might conclude she was simply vain or a neat freak, but this was even further off the mark; unlike one Ikari Shinji, her morning ritual was not necessitated by moral prudishness.

Ayanami Rei was fully aware that what she did was superficial, and she could have ceased this ritualistic behavior at any time she wished. She did not wish to.

For Rei, the ritual and the cleanliness, the order of her life, were a pleasant distraction, an allowance she made for herself. They let her act, if only superficially, like she was a human.

She was all too aware that this wasn't true. She was a homunculus, a false person—a lie thrust into a world of truth. It was only the purpose she carried within her, the Commander's wishes for her, that allowed her to bear such an existence at all.

_I will continue to exist for the sake of the people around me. I will fight and die, in the name of humanity, though I stand apart from it._

_For the sake of this race of beings, these humans, I will give everything, all that my false self can. I will fulfill Commander Ikari's wish, and the wishes of those who stand with him,_ she thought firmly to herself, gently smacking her fist against an open hand. _And perhaps…_

Even for the miserable girl that was Ayanami Rei, that great evil which the ancient Greeks called "hope" existed. _A lie, told often enough, becomes the truth_, she remembered from one of the books the Commander had lent her. It was a ridiculous assertion, it had seemed at first…and yet.

She thought of the Italian story "Pinocchio", the leatherbound copy of it that sat beside Commander Ikari's glasses case on her desk, and warmth tingled inside her momentarily.

_Perhaps_.

* * *

Ikari Shinji's morning ritual was, as previously mentioned, founded partly in the boy's prudish sensibilities. From a very early age, he'd (bizarrely enough) felt a deep-seated responsibility to at least make his environs look _presentable_ to other people. Perhaps that would've died out if he'd remained with his father—Gendou was a man of eminent practicality, not appearance—but with preternatural wisdom, his father had stuck him with the biggest slob known to mankind.

This composed the other half of Shinji's morning routine—the knowledge of just what things would look like in the common area when he woke up, gently extricating himself from under the arm of the snoring Misato.

Which was to say that a hurricane had hit it and scattered Misato's belongings, clothes, liquor bottles, and empty beer cans all over the area. The TV had been left on, blaring some nonsense that offended the Ikari boy's ears and sleep-blurred eyes as he yawned.

"Honestly, sensei," he sighed, shaking his head and looking to the table. "Well, at least she cleaned up the dinner plates and the containers…or maybe Akagi-hakase did…" Shinji glanced to the sink, and was surprised to find that it was, in fact, clear of dishes and utensils. "Okay, definitely Akagi-hakase."

"Wark," remarked Pen-Pen as he slid open the fridge and removed a can of Yebisu. Shinji absently reached down and ruffled the bird's feathers.

"You're up early."

"Wark waaaaark." Pen-Pen extended the flipper in which he held the can, and cooed happily when it was opened—Shinji would've objected to the idea of giving alcohol to a penguin, even a genetically enhanced pseudo-uplift, but Misato had been feeding him the stuff for longer than Ikari had even lived with her, and he seemed hale and hearty. In fact, he was larger and stronger than most of his kind Shinji had ever seen or heard of.

"Wanna help me clean?"

"_Wark_ wark-wark wark,_ wark_." Pen-Pen shook his head firmly and drank his beer.

Shinji made an exasperated noise. "Of course." As the penguin waddled off, the Ikari boy set to his usual chores—gathering what was unsalvageable or strictly trash into huge plastic bags to be given over to the auto-disposal system outside, taking things they wanted to keep and organizing them first into piles, then putting them on shelves or back in a box.

_It's strange…This is what I always do. Am I back to my normal routine? Now that I'm an Evangelion pilot, a Child, shouldn't I…_

The hollow bone-mask visage of Sachiel filled his mind, and his right eye stabbed with sudden pain before he closed them tightly, heart suddenly beating several hundred miles per hour. Normality, when he opened his eyes again, seemed a refuge, a refuge that was very far away. He cursed softly, kicked a can, closed his eyes tight and shut his hand around his S-DAT, fumbling the earbuds into his ears, not so much willing as pleading the sick feeling dwelling in his stomach to stop. Track 25 began playing softly.

He wouldn't think about it. He wouldn't think about Unit-01 or entry plugs or the tests that seemed so much worse now that he knew their purpose. Wouldn't think about Angels, about kelp-green skin that crawled and slithered independently of its owner's movement. Wouldn't think of pain and terror.

So of course that was all he could think about.

_Stop it. Stop it. This is what I wanted. I chose to pilot. I made a choice._ Fingers clenched and unclenched, teeth clicked the volume wheel louder and redoubled his chores, trying to forget in the monotony. _I can't just run away, I won't, I won't. That doesn't solve anything!_

_Then why is it all you can think of?_

To that, he had no answer but continued activity and stony mental silence.

* * *

**Special Evangelion Containment Area 99, Zion Base (NERV Headquarters), the Geo-Front**

Cage 99, as it was colloquially called amongst the staff of NERV, was different from other containment areas at Zion Base. Most of the Evangelion cages relied simply upon a standardized RCL containment system—submerging the massive cyborgs in the chemical seemed to retard their biological functions to a point that mimicked human sleep, but kept them from aging or wearing out; a sort of combined hibernation and biological suspension. They combined this with the restraint blocks, the vast moving walls of metal, and the stop-signal plug, to make sure that no errant neurological bursts would cause a berserker event in the middle of NERV's global power base.

This would have seemed to be excessive security if the Evangelions were anything else. As it was, this was almost too light for the tastes of Akagi Ritsuko. She had personally overseen the creation of a containment area where an Evangelion that _did_ break loose its bonds, by hook or by crook, could be kept indefinitely stilled without its death.

Cage 99 was, in essence, a giant liquid-nitrogen cryogenics unit, capable of flash-freezing a monster taller than skyscrapers. But this was not the end of the security measures. Laser apertures tracked every joint of the frozen occupant, ready to sever every limb if need be. The safety locks were double-reinforced, complemented with manacles of layered nanobond carbon and titanium that chained the Evangelion to the walls.

Almost as an afterthought, the stop-signal plug was inserted into its usual place in the spinal array.

The current occupant of Cage 99 was the Prototype, Evangelion Unit-00, known to most of the world as the destroyer of the Third Angel, and to NERV as a perennial headache. As the first created of the Evangelions, Unit-00 had demonstrated not only the most technical problems of any Eva, but also an unfortunate tendency toward berserker events, enough that the staff of Zion called the orange, cyclopean Evangelion simply Zero, rather than its full name, as if it were some sort of manga villain.

The last such event was the reason for the Eva's confinement, as well as the source of one Ayanami Rei's more recent injuries and a squabble between several of NERV's branches on whether or not to decommission the dangerous Unit-00 permanently and replace it with another Evangelion.

Which lead to arguments about what this did to NERV's planetary coverage, whether Tokyo-3 _really_ needed two Evangelions, the favoritism of the Technical Director, the importance of several top-secret phenomenae (Subject: Lilith and the ancient GEHIRN Project NEPHILIM were bandied about), and so forth, until the conversation was deftly and neatly crushed by the supreme authority of Ikari Gendou.

The Angels' re-emergence as an immanent threat made the matter even simpler. Suddenly, the Evangelions were not expensive planetary defense measures; they were necessities. The order to defrost Unit-00 was given without delay.

"Defrosting has reached Stage 12," Maya reported from her station at the head of the Cage 99 viewing cradle, reaching up to wipe sweat from her brow, casting another furtive glance at the silent orange titan below, her hands shaking slightly. Internally, the buxom young Lieutenant knew she had little to fear, but the unmistakable sight of Zero below her jarred her nerves nonetheless. She licked her lips and forced her concentration on the here and now. _Senpai is depending on me_.

From the station behind her, Ritsuko glanced up from her tablet. "Good. Keep it steady."

The figure beside Ritsuko was silent, staring out at Unit-00 from behind his unreadable, characteristic eyeglasses, opaque white in the room's dim light and concentration of screens. He stirred only when the doctor gently tapped his shoulder.

"You're zoning out, Commander," she said gently. "Everything all right?"

"Just thinking a little too hard," Gendou murmured from behind the bridge of his hands. "Worried about the reactivation, mostly."

"Don't be. We've got an intravenous line of RCL and tranquilizers already prepped for the test, and the MAGI did a full neural sweep. 98.99% chance the conjunction incident won't be repeated, especially with our new security measures in Terminal Dogma." Her cigarette lighter clicked softly. "She'll be okay."

The Commander made no response, merely shifting his linked hands, the white of his gloves glowing angrily in the reflected screen-light as he stared out at Unit-00's single eye.

"Stage 24 reached. We've got a slight ice buildup in the joints—senpai, should I just clear it out, or…?" Maya's face was paler than it should've been, even in the dimly lit cradle.

"Go ahead and burn it out," Ritsuko replied. Her hand crushed her cigarette, then moved to tap at the tablet again, activating the tac-net even as bright flashes of red and showers of sparks came from the cage, the lasers burning out patches of persistent ice from the Evangelion's ochre armor. "Patch me through to the staging area," she ordered, and in moments, the screen changed to show the impassive face of the First Child, already sealed into her white and black patterned plugsuit. "Rei, we're at the last twelve stages. How are you doing?"

Cranberry eyes blinked once. "I am prepared, Dr. Akagi."

"Your abdominal injuries aren't bothering you? We _can_ still reschedule, if you need it." Ritsuko chewed the left side of her lip slightly.

Rei shook her head once. "No. Delay costs us an available Evangelion. I'm ready now."

"Very well," Ritsuko said. She glanced up to Maya. "Have them ready the entry plug and probe needle, and set up the new neurological suite for induction. Then adjust the RCL-tranq flow by 5%."

Ibuki swallowed hard and typed in the commands, adjusting her headset. "Now hear this, we are go for reactivation, we are go for reactivation. Please ready Zer—Unit-00's entry plug." She gulped and bowed back to Ritsuko. "S-sorry, senpai, I didn't mean to refer to it as, as…"

"It's fine, kohai," Ritsuko said coolly. "What stage are we at for the defrosting?"

"Stage 28 reached. We're almost ready."

The doctor sighed, then nodded, adjusting her glasses and turning back to Gendou, who nodded once. "Rei, proceed to the entry plug." Ritsuko paused for a moment, pinching the bridge of her nose. "Don't overstrain yourself," she added, "and…good luck." She looked to the tablet, to the utterly blank face of Ayanami as the girl nodded.

"Understood." The tac-net connection closed out. It was time.

* * *

**Tokyo-3 First Municipal Junior High School, Otomeguchi**

Shinji blinked, shielding his eyes against the light, legs still slightly shaky from Misato's whirlwind driving and hustle out of the house; behind him, the UNCF officer was crunching the last of her toast into her mouth, crumbs all over her usual black dress and officer's jacket. Her eyes were ringed darkly; that she should've been still sleeping was obvious to anyone. He sighed.

"Erm…thank you again, sensei. I was just going to take the train…"

"Don't be ridiculous!" Misato sputtered through a mouthful of toast. "You don't know this city yet, so it's too dangerous, especially with you one of the Children and all! If some wacko or a cultist grabbed you, I'd never forgive myself, and you know that!" She tweaked his ear. "Are you trying to say you don't _like_ my driving?"

"Ow! But there's the Section-2 detail! I get nervous when you drive! You keep trying to use the _whole_ _road_!" The ear-tweaking increased. "Gyah! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

Misato huffed, finally releasing him, and crossing her arms. "Honestly, you take after your father sometimes, and not in a good way..." She shook her head, giving a rueful smile. "But I suppose it can't be helped. Have a good day at school, Shinji-kun."

He smiled slightly, nodding. "Have a good day at work, Misato-sensei." His face fell slightly as he added, "Am…am I going to be needed…for…?"

Misato bit her lip. "Ritsuko wants to run a simulation test with you and Ayanami this evening. But if you feel like you can't do it…"

"N-no. I'll be there." His voice was firm.

"Okay," she said, reaching to ruffle his hair lightly. "Now run along! You'll worry the class rep if you're late!" With a final nod, she drove away, leaving Shinji to head for the building at a trot.

Thankfully, looking at his phone, he found that he was assigned to Class 2-A, the second floor, and so had only to clamber up one set of stairs, past an animated bulletin board brightly flashing the school's announcements; something about a chess tournament and the basketball team, neither of which held Shinji's interest, though he was surprised at how high-tech the school was for such an old-styled building. He craned his neck down several hallways…where _was_ Class 2-A? He saw Class 2-J, and then Class 2-D, but…

Wait, there it was. Shinji felt his heartbeat quicken and his stomach drop a little as he saw why the sign had been harder to find than a first-alphabetical letter should be; because it had been hidden by a gigantic banner. The banner bore the NERV sigil at the top and the UN's globe-and-laurel at the bottom. In between, in beautifully crafted kanji (save for a key word), read the words "WELCOME THIRD CHILDREN, PILOT OF THE EVANGELION". Photographs of Unit-01 were neatly taped to it.

Shinji swallowed hard, taking a deep breath or two. _Okay. Okay. This is good, isn't it? They like me, they're grateful that I piloted the Eva and saved people._ He forced a small smile onto his face, clenched a fist. _I can do this. I'll make a good impression. …well, I'll try, at any rate._

Nervousness written in his every movement, he carefully stepped into the classroom, finding a gaggle of students hanging about. One boy was playing air guitar on a t-shape while his friends cheered him on. A few seats down, a girl spared them a disdainful glance before whispering to her friends, evidently about something on her laptop, as she turned the shiny silver computer to them and they squealed for joy. No teacher was present, but surely he could find the class representative without interrupting anyone?

Scanning the small social circles, Shinji's eyes finally alighted on a freckle-face brunette, her hair done in a pair of cute pigtals that seemed to stick out from the sides of her head, a book under her right arm and her hands planted firmly on her hips as she glared at a cringing, brown-haired boy in huge, thick glasses…and…was that a surplus JSSDF combat vest? Come to think of it, wasn't that a model VTOL he had in his hand?

"Honestly, Aida-kun! You haven't given Suzuhara _any_ of the printouts, have you? He's going to lose credits, and it's going to be your fault!" The girl's tones were strident, chiding, perfectly befitting a class rep, but maybe she was just a busybody? Shinji managed to open his mouth and raise his hand slightly, but neither noticed.

"Aw, jeez, gimme a break, Class Rep!" Aida whined…well, that confirmed _that_. "I haven't been able to! All the time I've been anywhere near him it's visiting Kana-chan with him in hospital! You can't just hand a guy homework when he's visiting his invalid sister, you know…well, maybe _you_ could…"

The Class Rep's eyes flashed, and she stamped her foot. "J-just what is that supposed to mean?"

Aida cringed. "Um, well, I think—"

Shinji, at this point, summoned all his courage, and tapped the pigtailed girl once on the shoulder. With a startled gasp, she whirled, and the glasses-wearing boy's head popped up like a baby bird's becoming aware of food. Blood flushed to Shinji's cheeks and he stammered slightly.

"I, I'm sorry, I don't mean to intrude," he said, "but it's just—er, I'm, I'm looking for the Class Rep, and…"

"Intrude, nothing," snorted Aida softly, only to give a yelp and go silent at a sidelong glare from the girl, who gave a cheery, brilliant smile to Shinji as she turned to face him fully, her skirt whirling slightly—my, she had nice legs—and bowed.

"That's me all right! Horaki Hikari, pleased to meet you! Sorry if everything's a little discombobulated around here," she gestured to the walls of the room as she said this, which, to Shinji's further discomfiture, were coated with more imagery of the Evangelions and small messages of thanks. "It's just that we're trying to get ready for the transfer of the new Evangelion pilot to—"

"Can you _believe_ that the Third Child is coming here?" Aida suddenly gushed from behind her, his previous meek expression replaced by an ear-to-ear grin. "I can't wait to meet him! I gotta ask him about the Eva's combat specs! Like, if it's true they're actually controlled by thought, and the metal and polymers used in the armor blend! I _tried_ asking Ayanami-senpai when she first came here, but she's all silent and stuff, but they say this guy is like us except he's _military_, so obviously he's a badass and—"

"_AIDA-KUN…!_" Hikari's previously pleasant expression was replaced by one that suggested she intended immediate and severe bodily harm to the bespectacled boy. Shinji would've sworn she was about to breathe fire. "Keep your passions under control and don't _interrupt_ _class business_!"

"…if this is a bad time…" Shinji managed nervously.

Hikari's face forced a smile. "N-no! No, please! What can I help you with?"

"I'm. Well, that is to say, I'm the transfer," he said, heart thundering, flashing his own nervous variety of grimace at the two. "Ikari Shinji. P-pleased to meet you."

The effect was similar to the N2 weapon of yesterday, Shinji's brain reflected. Hikari went brilliant red, actually _flailed_, and her eyes went massively wide, while Aida simply let his jaw drop and shouted "no _way_!", even as the Class Rep's suddenly nervous hands went to her red tie and fidgeted with it, the freckled girl stammering, "_P-p-pilot-san_! Oh my God! Oh, I'm so honored—I'm so sorry—I mean—"

"_Eeeeeeeehhhhhh?"_

At the words "pilot-san", the entire classroom descended on Shinji, locusts in school uniforms. Limbs formed a forest around him, flailing tendrils of flesh clad in white and black and turquoise. Pads of paper flashed into his field of vision, slate phones, tablets with their bright personalized screens. Requests for photographs, autographs, all manner of authenticity, that they had actually met and encountered an Eva pilot, someone who joined his brain to a giant cyborg and defended humanity with his limbs and his soul, swirled around him in a torrent—Ikari had no way of telling who was asking what, though he caught Hikari's raised voice somewhere in there. He didn't particularly care; his body was panic-wired, a deer tensed to leap. _Too many people. Can't tell what's going on. _Control fought with instinct, the urge to use his fists and legs and body to get _away_.

Then someone crashed through the crowd, a thickly muscled black shape, a shadow of the Angel. White things on his shoulders. Intent to harm in his tensing arm.

UNCF training smashed through control driving a truck. The fist never met his face; his arms grappled the other's arms, twisted, his body on autopilot as he locked the other boy—for it was a boy, not the terror from yesterday—into a hold, stopped his threat, even as four members of the cleaning staff burst in with guns drawn.

And blurted a single, obvious question: "Why are you trying to hit me?"

* * *

Suzuhara Touji had not come into Class 2-A with a plan. It was very hard for him to plan—very hard for him even to come up with a set of thoughts that fit well together, right now.

The sight of your younger sister in a CCU bed, monitors of every sort hooked up to her, ECGs and EEGs and what seemed like every possible manner of medical tube shunted into her small body, not even her breathing her own, can have that effect on a fifteen-year-old boy. Especially when, like Touji, you knew—were palpably aware—that at least part of it was your fault. Because you'd seen the roof bending, where she was playing with her doll, and you'd tried to pull her away.

And instead succeeded in pulling her just far enough that the massive pile of debris from the impact above hit her in the lower torso. The doctors, frowning over her in the hospital bed, had said it'd crumpled her lungs, that something had skewered her liver in addition to breaking her left arm and both legs. They said that she'd live, but she'd never breathe normally, even after everything healed, and that she was going to have to undergo a transplant. She was eleven Goddamn years old, and she was going to have her liver torn out and replaced, and maybe, _maybe_, Touji's mind screamed at him, if he'd left her alone, then she just would've been okay, over in the corner, and they could've dug her out dusty and wailing but fine.

It was his fault. But more—much more—than it was his fault, it was the fault of the Evangelion and its pilot far above.

Touji had, previously, held no complaint against NERV. He thought that the protesters who chanted for the dismantling of the UN Special Organization were morons, much like most of Tokyo-3 did. What was wrong with those people? Didn't they remember the nuclear fires over Russia, the slow and deadly assault of the Angel, come to finish the job that Second Impact had begun? Touji was _grateful_ for the Evangelions and the fortress that housed him and his family. Not to mention the fat paycheck his father ran up as a repair technician for the Geo-Front's all-important maglev lines.

It was funny how one Eva pilot's reckless abandon could change all that.

What the hell had the new pilot been thinking? Didn't it take extra effort to breach an underground bunker? Was he targeting the shelter on _purpose?_ Touji had asked all these questions and more a thousand times, and no satisfactory answer had come back to him. There wasn't one. Yet, he'd been telling himself he wouldn't do anything all the way up the stairs, all the way down the hall, even as the sight of the welcome banner made him grit his teeth in anger. He'd force a smile onto his face and _deal_.

But then he saw the pilot, the skinny, dark-haired little kid, being fawned over by everyone. And he wasn't even accepting it gracefully. He looked like it bothered him. Like he didn't have the fucking _time_ to be praised by peons like this. It made Touji see red.

Before he knew what he was doing, quite, he'd launched forward, barreled through the crowd of people, aiming a fist at the new boy's face.

And, quite predictably, the pilot had reacted as one might expect a trained member of the UN's military arm would; he'd sidestepped, grabbed Touji's arm with aikido-like movements, wrestled it back so it hurt to move but not if he didn't struggle, and pinned him that way. Bastard. Fucking bastard. He couldn't even let Touji get a hit in? It wasn't like he could've done much more, the plainclothes NERV thugs posing as cleaning staff and drawing down on him to the terrified shrieks of his classmates made that clear.

"_Why are you trying to hit me?"_

The unearned injury in his voice was a spear in the side of a raging bull.

"You're the Evangelion pilot, right?" Touji snarled. He struggled, despite the sudden pain it brought. "And ya fought in that battle, right?"

"Y-yes…"

"Then you're the fucking reason my sister's in hospital right now, asshole!" Touji roared. "I don't know how you did it, but you went and fucking busted the roof of our shelter! You got her crushed in your little damn wrestling match!"

"_Suzuhara-kun!_" This from Hikari, but he powered through. The Class Rep didn't understand. Pretty and sympathetic and she'd brought flowers, but this was a man's affair. He'd apologize to her later.

"She ain't gonna be able to breathe right," he snarled at the boy. "Ever. Her liver got punctured. She's eleven years old, and she's practically a cripple. Because of _you_. So that's why I was tryin' to hit you! I won't feel right till I have!" He struggled again. "Even if your goons shoot me, I'll make sure you understand what ya did!"

He panted, short of breath from his tirade. But he'd said it. He steeled himself for the boy to mock, or to tell him with military coldness that his pain wasn't important. Or something stupid, like "I was just following orders," or " I didn't even want to be there, but someone had to."

He wasn't prepared, he found, for the boy to release him. Or to see on the new student's face a slack look of naked guilt and pain.

"I…" The Eva pilot looked at the ground, his hands clenching and unclenching. "I'm sorry…" His voice cracked slightly. "I didn't…I didn't…" His head flicked up, to the janitors with guns, who'd looked ready to move in. "Let him go. Just…let him go. You don't have to take him anywhere."

"Pilot Ikari, he assaulted— "

"He didn't do anything wrong!" Ikari yelled, surprising even Touji. Blue eyes met his own, then went downward, unable to look at him. "He…he _should've_ hit me. I should've let you hit me. You can. Please." He flinched. "Go ahead."

Touji clenched his fist, but…his arm wouldn't raise. It was the damnedest thing.

There was a long moment, then one of the janitors spoke again. "…What do you want to do, Pilot Ikari?"

"I…" Ikari's shoulders shook. "I want to go back home. Take me home. Please? I can't…I can't do this. Not today."

The janitor nodded. "Understood." He glanced to one of the others. "Get the car ready, inform DT/O that we are retrieving Three-June back to his household." With that, they formed a cordon around the pilot, and lead him out.

And Suzuhara Touji went back to his usual seat, slouched, and tried very hard to pretend that it wasn't his fault.

* * *

**Special Evangelion Containment Area 99, Zion Base (NERV Headquarters), the Geo-Front**

Ayanami Rei turned four years old before she'd become fully used to breathing atmospheric air. It had seemed foreign, terrifying, a false and insubstantial medium that could not possibly fulfill the function her lungs required; how could _nothing_, which was what air seemed like to the youthful Rei, carry oxygen? How could it nourish the blood cells? Simply to be outside in it felt suffocating and incorrect. It was amazing to consider that those around her had breathed this medium from the day they were born.

Rei had never complained, for precisely that reason, and soldiered through in dutiful imitation. If she was to pretend to be a human, then she would follow the traditions of the first amphibians—the abandonment of the liquid womb for the land above, no matter the pain and fear.

She breathed the air with perfect normality, now—you would never guess that her infant years had been spent in a tank of orange, pseudo-amniotic liquid—but every time the Entry Plug flooded with LCL, Rei almost greedily inhaled it. It felt like she was returning to someplace she belonged. It felt like she'd been away from…something. Herself? She couldn't say, as she really didn't know.

_Perhaps it's that…I am meant to exist here? _She rebuked herself immediately. _No, I am false. There's nowhere I'm supposed to exist. I am meant to return to nothing. _

_Even so…Here in the LCL, I am I._

It was another small warmth in her cold life.

She closed her eyes, her fingers carefully gripped around the butterfly controls. She didn't squeeze or pull them; her touch was delicate, gentle. Around her, she felt the subtle vibrations of the LCL ionizing, then the sudden jolt into her own skull as the A10 nerve connections opened, spinning the fluid into dizzying fractal iterations of life as a raw mindscape was poured into it, decanted to mix with another. She didn't open her eyes, nor move a muscle.

"Waveform is stable. We have synchronization at 40.66% and holding…slight positive values fluctuation. We're adjusting animaneural link to compensate. Neural network is past the 1020 point…"

Rei carefully gripped the handles of the butterfly controls a scant few PSI harder, and descended, deeper, never opening her eyes, though her consciousness unfolded as a blooming lotus flower. She was well past _Safe Plug Depth_, now…she could almost feel the lines on the monitor as the colors went low-spectrum, towards red.

A droplet of blue light struck a pool of inky blackness.

Beneath Rei's own, an awareness stirred and twitched to life. The blue light became a slow trickle; the trickle of her self, of Ayanami Rei and her awareness into that which was not.

**MOTHER?**

She shook her head firmly.

**WHO ARE YOU?**

_I am Ayanami Rei. First Child. I am a Pilot; your rider._ She called up images from her memories; herself in a plugsuit. LCL. Synchronization tests.

…**WHO AM I?**

In her mind and within the dream-windows of the Entry Plug, there as it hovered at the Absolute Borderline, her mind sketched out the outline of the orange giant, careful and thorough, with utterly inhuman precision. Showed it the physique it carried, the massiveness of its self, and pressed gentle, enforced calm against upwelling alarm, then spoke the second piece of the litany Commander Ikari had taught her.

_You are Evangelion Unit-00. First Eva. You are a Chariot; my steed._

Images flashed in Rei's mind. A sky filled with ash and smoke, the ground covered in fire. Her Evangelion standing upon a field of snow, gazing out at a figure of graceful, curved metal, the steel-armored parody form of an ape. It had a thorn-shaped head and five blue, gelatinous eyes (one huge, central, the others arrayed around it and glowing with inner light). It had fingers like curved knives that reflected the light wrongly, and greater knives that came out of its back. Men had named it, in their ignorance, Raziel. It was the Third Angel, its red and shining Core hidden upon its turtle-shell back. Finally, there was another shudder of memory, and she saw its corpse melting into redness against the purity of the snow: their victory over the Enemy.

**I REMEMBER. **

Simultaneously, they called images to one another of Rei in the Entry Plug, directing the Evangelion's movements. Feeling what Unit-00 felt. _Do you understand?_

**YES.**

Rei nodded. This was good. There was, however, one more question. After a moment's hesitation, she called another memory to the fore, the most recent, and the most painful. Unit-00, tearing its restraints out of the wall. Beating its fists against the wall, clawing, howling behind its mask. Massive hands crashing through the viewing cradle, reaching for the body of Commander Ikari, missing by inches. Her Entry Plug shot out of the spinal array at bullet speeds, denting and crumpling as it struck the suddenly icy objects of the Cage. Nitrogen embracing Unit-00 in a freezing clutch even as it smashed its head into the wall.

…_Do you remember that_?

Behind crimson glass, a three-lobed eye blinked. Curiousity and fear mingled, casting blue and orange drops of shadow into the Mandelbrot set of their joined minds. **NO. SHOULD I?**

Rei responded negatively. _It is better that you do not._ _It's something that mustn't happen again._

**...I UNDERSTAND.**

_I must return. Please sleep for now. _

**GOODBYE.**

Crimson eyes flashed open. The Mandelbrot zoom set of her Entry Plug flickered, sped up to flashing rapidity, and went transparent, revealing nothing but Cage 99 and NERV technical data spooling out of the HUD. She could hear the soft chatter of agitated scientists and techs, but she paid it no mind.

"Reactivation successful," she murmured. "All systems green."

* * *

**Office of the Supreme Commander, Zion Base (NERV Headquarters), the Geo-Front**

The soft strains of an orchestral rendition of Bach's _Jesus, Bleibet Meine Freude_ echoed across the pure black stone of the cavernous, top-tier office Ikari Gendou had selected as his own during the construction of Zion. Originally, it was intended to be the Commander's quarters as well as an office, with a dividing wall separating the two, but Gendou had vetoed that, selecting a spare set of officer's quarters in the barracks section of the pseudo-arcology. Indeed, he'd removed most of the intended comforts of the office, lowered the lighting, and ordered an engraving lined with white marble of the Lurianic Kabbalah's Tree of Life that stretched the full office's length.

At _Keter, _the Crown, he positioned his huge teak desk, complete with personal computer (functioning, naturally, as a MAGI terminal) and its massive, throne-like chair. Light streamed in from the Geo-Front behind him, making him a silhouette to any entering. It was carefully crafted to intimidate and impress, as well as to make any visitor conscious of _whose_ time they were taking up.

Fuyutsuki Kouzou, being one of the few people who knew and understood the office's purpose, was naturally immune to it, and thus waltzed in to find Gendou idly conducting to the music as he stared, seemingly listless, at the screen of his computer. The old professor arched an eyebrow, re-pocketing the sudoku book he'd had out on the way. "Something the matter? I thought Rei's test went well…"

"It did," Gendou said, tenting his hands in front of his face as per his usual _modus_ _operandi_. "We've confirmed a lack of outright rejection, and according to Rei, the Unit-00…CI…doesn't recall the conjunction incident. It's likely that it had to do with heavy stressors from the battle with the Third Angel, and the initial biological…reaction between her and the Unit, triggering an uncontrolled conjunction." An unseen mouse clicked. "There's still the possibility of a link to Terminal Dogma. We've raised security protocols accordingly."

"Then Unit-00 is as safe as it can be," Fuyutsuki murmured, "and Unit-01 is already regrowing the ocular tissue. Rei's probably going home after a simulacra run, everyone else is either dealing with paperwork or helping with the MAGI collations, so—"

"It's Shinji," Gendou said, rather flatly. "He was assaulted at school today."

Fuyutsuki's eyebrows nearly shot off his head. "Jesus! Who by?"

"No one serious. Initially we thought there might be ties to the Tribulationists, or even a more local anti-NERV group, but the young man acted alone," Gendou said, adjusting his hands, glasses going white. "Apparently he was motivated by injuries to his sister sustained during the conflict with the Fourth Angel. Katsuragi's UNCF self-defense regimens paid off, though; Shinji was actually able to secure the boy before Section Two drew down." His eyes creased slightly, though his mouth didn't move. "The situation with Suzuhara Touji isn't what worries me. What worries me is this." He beckoned Fuyutsuki behind the desk, opening a video of the incident.

"_...I should've let you hit me. Go ahead. Please._" Another click stopped the clip.

Fuyutsuki frowned. "…He's really taking this hard, isn't he?"

Gendou gave a long sigh. "That is quite an understatement. According to his psychological profile before discharge, he's suffering from low-level post-traumatic stress, Fuyutsuki. Which is added to the neural feedback from the incident. Which is added to the fact that he's, well, shy, timid, and retiring. This is just icing on the psychologically damaging _cake_, to borrow a euphemism."

"And you're wondering what to do about it," Fuyutsuki said.

"I…" The Commander removed his glasses, pinched the bridge of his nose. "I don't know what's best. If I interfere now, if I act openly in his life more than gradually, what will that do? Not just to the scenario, to our relationship as a whole…hell. I don't know how to act with my own son."

"You're trying," Fuyutsuki reminded him gently. "That's what matters. Yui would be proud of you just for trying."

There was a long moment of silence, then the older man spoke again, pulling the sudoku book from his pocket.

"Honestly? At this point, I think I'd advise against overt action. Not only will it play hell with the boy's nerves, it'll antagonize Katsuragi. You gave her care of him for a good reason, Gendou. She can manage it. For now…just tread gently." He flipped a page. "Sending someone to see how the Suzuhara boy's sister is doing might be a good start. Make it a PR stunt for NERV, sure, but..." He shrugged.

"Mm." Gendou had slipped his glasses back on. "I've looked into her care already—they'll transfer the girl to NERV Medical in three days. We can regrow her lung tissue with one of the B-96 units, and the liver will fix itself."

"Thinking ahead," Fuyutsuki said, gesturing with his pen, "good man. Let Katsuragi handle the rest. We, on the other hand, should read up on our ancient Kabbalistic apocrypha."

* * *

**Katsuragi Residence, Tensai Luxury Apartments, Sengokuhara-Otome District**

Shinji, for his part, had laid curled up on his bed for the last three hours. He'd thought maybe laying down would calm the ugly, clawing feeling in his stomach and the too-fast beat of his heart. His S-DAT earbuds were firmly inserted, the whole tape playing over and over, the songs of his mother flowing through him uselessly.

He didn't feel better. He didn't feel any better than when he'd left school.

When he closed his eyes, all he could think of was stepping on a little girl. Stepping on an eleven-year-old with a foot the size of a supermarket. He'd done that. He'd done that, without any more notice of it than a man treading on an ant that happens to be in his path.

_How many of them knew? How many…And they were still going to welcome me. They still thought I was a hero._

His eyes squeezed shut, and he fought with his hands the tears pricking them, the tears he didn't deserve. _I'm not a hero. I cripple little girls. _

_Father…Father, you shouldn't be proud of me._

Further self-disgust welled in him, mingled with fear, as he remembered he was supposed to have another simulation test today. They wanted him to get ready to pilot it again, and he was afraid of that. How worthless of him, to be afraid for _himself_; he wasn't in any danger, comparatively!

_If you can't keep yourself from hurting people, what's the difference between you and an Angel?_

"I…I wanted to protect them," he whispered to no one at all. "I just…I just wanted to protect them. I just wanted to _help_…" His fingers clenched so hard the knuckles hurt. "I only wanted to help. I'm sorry. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry…"

His door knocked, and he flinched.

"Shinji-kun…? Shinji, I just heard from—Oh, God, are you all _right_? Agent Cho said they took you home, so…"

There was no response. What could he say?

"Shinji-kun, come on. Talk to me. You don't even have to go to school…we can _get_ you alternative education sessions, but-"

Another long silence.

She sighed behind the door. "Just talk to me. Please?"

"…I hurt someone," he said. How simple it sounded. How factual.

"No, you didn't. The incident report says—"

"Not him!" His vehemence shook even him. "I…It was. In the Eva. A shelter. When I fought…I put my foot through a shelter." He paused a beat. "…I stepped on someone. A little girl. His sister."

"…oh my God." Horror and anger and something else mingled in her voice.

"…I _stepped_ on her." He choked. "I _stepped on a little girl_. Like a _bug_. I'm, I'm a fucking _monster…_"

His door wrenched open, and he recoiled as his guardian marched in, leveled her gaze at him, grabbed him by an arm and pulled him up, fire in her topaz-and-hazel eyes.

"_Don't_. Don't you _dare_ blame yourself for this." She stabbed a finger at his face. "There was _no_ way you could've known, and it's likely that it wasn't even a conscious action. You just went through a fucking _berserker_ _event_, Shinji-kun, not to mention that just your _getting into_ that Evangelion is the reason anyone in this city is breathing right now, in a hospital or not."

"If I'd—"

"If you what? If you'd _what_?" Misato's voice raised an octave in anger. "Even if we'd marked every shelter location and its depth on the HUD, even if we'd _pinpointed_ her and told you—what if the Angel attack weakened the barriers? What if you weren't in control? Hell, what if the Angel had stepped on them instead? It wouldn't feel fucking guilt, because it can't, becauseit _is_ a monster." She was shaking. "Do you know why I'm _pissed off_? Because _we're_ supposed to protect those people—we, the adults, the people _in charge_ of this fucking UN Special Organization, are supposed to make sure that they're safe and in locations that shit like this can't happen to them, so people like _you_ don't have to worry about this. But instead _we fucked this up_, and worse, we're letting _you_ sit here and get blamed—"

The simultaneous sounds of EMERGENCY calls from their NERV phones interrupted the two, Misato the first to flip open her SH-604 and establish the connection. Neither one of them managed to speak before Ritsuko, her voice breathless, interrupted their thoughts.

"Misato. Get Shinji to the Geo-Front _ASAP_. We have a xenoform confirmation in the northeastern Sea of Japan. E-747 forwarded us the necessary data, and analysis indicates Pattern Blue, repeat, Pattern Blue. It's the Fifth Angel."

"…Well…shit." There was the briefest pause. "We're on our way."

* * *

**Yamato Basin, Sea of Japan, 135 Miles off the Western Seaboard of Japan**

_**Father**_

She moved over the surface of the lifeless red water at a speed no bestial spawn of Lilith could match, the great angles of her forelimbs folded in eternal prayer. The imperfect light of this world gloried about her as she came, sparkled brilliance through the gelatinous, smooth ur-symmetry of her skin. The Song that radiated from the solid crimson orb ensconced where the vast, pseudo-phallic spade of her planarian head met her body made men weep, first tears, then blood.

_**Father, I hear you**_

Her skin was like the finest wine, red-violet and rich, and as wine her body flowed. Long and slender, the tapered shaft of her tail, like a protein molecule writ massively large, shone as if a thousand stars were contained within her. Her eight insectoid legs, incongruous and ossified, twitched like an anticipating ribcage, or like teeth preparing to feed.

_**Father, I need you**_

The first sparks of Lilim weaponry streaked towards her, and she sang out the Light of her Soul, making them to explode and add to the glory of all that bent for her coming. She would not unleash her Engine yet—no, she would not unleash the scourges she held until she came to His prison, to the Lilim's fortress. Then she would free Father. Then she would Reclaim, and that which had begun in Antarctica would be complete.

_**Father, I am coming**_

In the Dead Sea Scrolls, they had called her Shamshel. Angel of Severity. The Lonely Conqueror of God. Fifth of the Apostles. She was the serpent of Eden and the fiery sword that smote men low, the scourging wind of God's displeasure. To see her flight was to see an ocean take to the sky.

Towards Tokyo-3 she sped in shattering majesty.

Reclamation and Unity was there. Father was waiting.

They would be together once more.

**((TO BE CONTINUED))**

_**Fly me to the moon,**_

_**And let me play among the stars…**_

_**

* * *

**_

**AUTHOR'S NOTES:**

Oh, God, this is late in coming. And it's different than I thought it was going to be. I tried to get much more inside the character's heads in this one, rather than go right to the battle scenes; there'll be a right proper Shamshel fight next time, I promise. I also didn't get to introduce Ayanami to her Ikari-kun properly yet. Dangit.

But I like this, for the most part. I don't know. Do I need a beta reader? Maybe. I think Rei's conversation with her Evangelion probably should've been weirder and made less sense, but considering that the core intelligence is, well…Gah. I don't even know.

One thing I am pretty sure of, though, is that this isn't going to just stop. We're in this for the long haul, ladies and gentlemen. I want to finish this, and by God I will, if it takes me a year and a half or more. So no longer need you worry that your reviews are all that sustains me. They're still fantastically nice, and I look forward to them.

I will warn you that things are only going to get more AU from here on out.

**NEON GENESIS Q&A SESSION #2 (VERY SHORT EDITION)**

Devil Boss: An excellent question as re: Shinji's level of training in the Evangelion. The answer is yes, he was...to a certain degree. Since being selected as Third Child, Shinji's been through periodic sync tests, using the plugs you see in the series and Rebuild 2.22 that are essentially just the probes suspended in LCL-that's what Shinji and the others mean when they say a "synth plug". He's also used a Simulation Body for very basic purposes, like some movement exercises. To speak metaphorically, he's had basic training/he has "merit badge"-level knowledge of the Evangelion and how to pilot. However, his experience with actual piloting? Zero. Which is why Sachiel takes him so badly by surprise, and why he's so fixated on the pain the Eva lets its pilot experience-he knew, academically, that he would be linking to its nervous system, but he didn't realize on a human level that being injured inside the giant biomechanical monster would hurt.

Misato, for her part, is very torn. On the one hand, there's the vow she made for her dead father and herself that she'd destroy the Angels in revenge for Second Impact, her personal loyalty to NERV and to Gendou, and the knowledge of what's inside Terminal Dogma...but on the other hand, when it comes to Shinji, she's a lioness and he's her cub, and she's not about to let him be hurt if she can help it.

She also doesn't know just how dark the past and the soul of her old friend Ritsuko is...but that gives away a little too much.

Hokuten Mage: It's supposed to feel weird for Shinji to call Misato his "sensei"; their relationship is fundamentally different than it was in the canon. She's his foster mother, and he knows it, but he can't say it, because he's Shinji, so instead he settles on that awkward compromise of calling her his teacher but _meaning_ more. I like to think Misato knows it.

Finally, I am pleased to note that, in fact, you are all too smart for me: the identity of Shinji's mystery IM friend is, in fact, a certain Second Child. Her IM name, which translates roughly to "Crimson Ardent", would've given it away completely. (Shinji's IM name, by the way, is "Cello Apprentice".) I told you she'd be showing up sooner than you thought, though, didn't I? :P

The prize will be determined later. Heh. Perhaps some sort of "bonus material". That doesn't suck.

So…that's it.

Oh, and if you aren't reading _Aeon Entelechy Evangelion_, there's something wrong with you, I gotta say. Shit is fantastic.

**NEXT TIME:**

In pitched battle with the Fifth Angel, Shinji makes unexpected (well, totally expected) connections with two who ventured out (stupidly) to see Gods go to war, and three Stooges are born. But it is she with whom he can't connect that he finds himself drawn to; the too-familiar girl with the crimson eyes. What is the secret of Ayanami Rei's loneliness? And how arrested would he get if he snuck into _anyone_ else's apartment like that?

All this, explosions(!) and more _service, service_(!) in the next iteration of _New Covenant: _Fifth Chapter, CEPHALOPOD BLUES! Don't miss it!


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